


Literati Tales

by Rumaan



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: Angst, F/M, Ficlet Collection, Fluff, Humor, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-17 02:20:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 24,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8126701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rumaan/pseuds/Rumaan
Summary: Collection of Literati ficlets and tumblr prompts.





	1. Forbidden Kisses

**Author's Note:**

> So because I am super predictable about characters and ships when I binged Gilmore Girls on Netflix I fell in love with Rory/Jess. This is a collection of ficlets and tumblr prompts for the pairing.

Kissing Jess while involved with someone else had become a habit. Not a habit to be proud of, but a habit anyway.

It wasn’t something Rory planned. Well, apart from the last time in Philadelphia. Then she had thought it would help. Ease the pain of looking at Logan and knowing that he slept with most of his sister’s friends while she had been upset at being on a break.

But she hadn’t planned it all those years ago at Sookie’s wedding. She had been determined to fight her attraction to Jess then. To stay loyal to Dean and their long relationship. But then Jess had appeared, all darkly brooding with that little smile on his face – the one that always seemed to be reserved for her – and she couldn’t fight her attraction any more.

She hadn’t planned it now, either.

Maybe it was something to do with weddings. Maybe she couldn’t resist Jess when she saw those around her getting their happy ever after. When their eyes would meet, the unspoken understanding they instinctively shared would bubble up, and she would wonder just what could be between them.

Anyway, somehow, she’d managed to find herself wedged into a supply closet, pushing Jess back against the wall as she kissed him frantically, her lips chasing his before he speared his hands into her up-do and kissed her just as fiercely.

“Stop,” she panted minutes later. “Stop. I can’t do this.”

“What?” he murmured kissing down her neck.

“I can’t do this,” she said. She pushed away from him, leaving him slumped against the wall in shock. “I’m sorry, Jess. I didn’t mean-”

Rory looked away, swallowing back a sob as shame flooded through her once more. She could feel Jess’ eyes observing her in that intent way that always made her shiver. No one else had ever managed to look quite so deeply into her – except for her mom – and she knew that he was piecing the bits together.

“You’re seeing someone,” he stated, not even bothering to make it a question.

She turned back to him, knowing that he at least deserved for her to actually face him, and nodded.

He sighed in frustration and ran a hand through his hair. “Dammit, Rory, you have to stop doing this to me.”

Leaning against the other wall, she tilted her head up, closed her eyes, and said, “I know. I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation, I didn’t mean for this happen.”

“That’s an improvement on last time at least. And at least you’re not begging me not to speak this time either.”

The small smile on his face didn’t quite cover the bitterness in his voice and she knew that she had hurt him. She had always kept tabs on him through his books and Luke, but after how things had ended that time in Philly, she’d never sought him out again. He hadn’t either. There had been no more invitations to open nights or to any of his subsequent book launches. However, she knew from Luke that he hadn’t been in any serious relationships and that his uncle worried about him.

Now, she wondered if he was still hung up on her. If the hurt she could gleam deep in his eyes meant he still loved her. She hoped not. Jess didn’t deserve that. She had never wished him ill; even when she had been at her angriest with him, when he had walked away without a word and broken her heart.

“You don’t deserve this,” she said, unconsciously echoing her words from their last meeting.

Straightening his jacket, Jess pushed off the wall, pulled open the closet door, paused, looked back at her sadly, and said, “It’s what it is.”

The door shut behind, leaving a muted silence in his wake as full of bittersweet memories as his repeated words.

Rory couldn’t help but wonder if they would ever get it right.


	2. Forbidden Kisses II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because @swishywillow asked for more and I'm a sucker for happy endings.

The kiss is a little bit too long. Rory knows that. Can hear the awkward shuffling of the people behind them but she can’t pull away. This moment has been too long in the waiting for them just to kiss each other chastely or appropriately. This kiss is a fulfilment of a desire for them to get the timing right.

For it not to be when they are teenagers; all fumbling emotions and unspoken hurts. For it not to be the product of battered feelings and bitter wounds. For it not to be the wrong time or the wrong place or even the wrong wedding.

And they finally do have it right. This is their moment and neither of them has any desire to break away.

It takes a pointed cough and Jess stumbling slightly into her, his teeth clashing painfully into hers. He pulls away, turns and mutters a curse word at his best man and uncle, who stands there with his elbow out and a smug smile on his face.

“Be grateful there is no water feature,” Luke says.

Rory wishes they had managed to keep their kiss in check when she catches a glimpse of Babette and Miss Patty, all waggling eyebrows and saucy grins.

“Now that’s a kiss!” Babette calls out and colour blooms in Rory’s cheeks as she remembers the diner and how embarrassed she had been all those years ago when her kisses with Jess had been scrutinised and found lacking.

But then Jess slings his arm around her, kisses the top of her head and whispers, “Finally,” in her ear and she beams back at those who have turned out for her wedding.

All those years of wondering and wrong kisses has culminated in this and Rory wouldn’t change a thing.


	3. Rethinking Jess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post 6.09. Lorelai finds out about Rory and Jess meeting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's not logical and would have furthered no plot but I have a lot of feelings about there not being a scene where Lorelai and Rory discuss Jess coming to Hartford to see Rory.

“Did Rory mention if Jess ever went to see her?”

The sleepy haze that Lorelai was basking in dissipated at Luke’s words.

“What?” she asked, lifting her head off his chest so she could see his face.

“Jess. Did Rory mention if he went to see her or not a couple of weeks back?”

“Why would Jess go to see Rory?”

“He wanted to show her his book.”

His explanation still made no sense to her. Apart from Jess briefly blowing through Stars Hollow like a bad tempered hurricane a couple of years ago, no one had seen or heard from him since. Well, it seemed like Luke heard from him, which probably wasn’t that surprising considering Luke’s endless patience with his family. However, it hadn’t come up because Jess wasn’t really a subject they discussed. She could never quite swallow her dislike for him and then he’d just left town, hurting Rory in the process, and any attempt she’d ever made to even slightly like him had gone

“Pinch me,” she demanded.

“What? Why?”

“To check if I’m dreaming or not.”

Luke les out a frustrated sigh. “Why would you be dreaming?”

“Because Jess apparently wanted to see Rory and he’s written a _book_?” She couldn’t help her incredulous tone, but the thought of Jess doing anything other than be a disaster of a human was strange. “Where is Jess?”

“Philadelphia. He’s working in publishing now.”

The pride was easy to hear in Luke’s voice and while she didn’t not hold any fondness for the surly kid, Luke did. He had always held out hope that Jess would get his life on track. Had never given up on him even when Jess was spitting vitriol at him. Lorelai had wanted to slap that smug little smirk off Jess’ face several times, but Luke had continued to love him.

“He did like to read,” she said non-committedly before holding out her arm. “Pinch me.”

Luke rolled his eyes in exasperation but pinched her anyway. “Ouch!” she said indignantly. “Guess I’m not dreaming.”

\----------

Things were still a little weird with Rory. Delicate. Neither of them liked to dig too deep for fear of causing another rupture in their relationship. It was getting back on track, but slowly.

It made Lorelai question whether to bring up the J word or not. Jess had always been a thorny topic between them. Lorelai had never liked him and Rory had always wanted her to try. She’d managed to begin to like him for a brief window of time when he’d managed to string several sentences together and even throw in some dry wit. She had finally seen just what Rory liked about him and then she had caught him coming out of Rory’s room. It didn’t help that a few hours later Rory found her bracelet and Lorelai just knew that Jess had stolen it. Any like she could have potentially had for him disappeared pretty quick after that.

She stewed on it for several days, but not talking things through with Rory was harder than ignoring the myriad of questions she had.

“Luke mentioned that Jess called a couple of weeks ago,” She said casually as they ate Chinese on the sofa. “Apparently he asked after you.”

Lorelai studied her daughter out the corner of her eye, not wanting her to feel scrutinised. There was a brief halt in the egg roll’s journey to Rory’s mouth.

“Oh yeah,” Rory said. “He swung by Grandma and Grandpa’s house.”

“He did?” she asked, turning around in her seat to face Rory. “You never said anything.”

Rory grimaced. “We weren’t exactly talking at the time.”

Pain lanced through Lorelai’s chest. She was certain that she would never be able to look back at the months they weren’t taking with any kind of complacency. It would always hurt.

“And?” There was another hesitation from Rory, almost as if she was measuring just what she should say to her mom, which made Lorelai sure that something fairly big had happened between them. “He didn’t confess his love again did he?”

That got a huff of laughter at least.

“No,” Rory said, getting up and going into her room for a moment. She came back out clutching a slim paperback which she threw to Lorelai. “He came to show me this.”

Lorelai looked down at the smooth cover. It had some suitably dark design on the front but there in gleaming white print was _Jess Mariano_ at the bottom. “Huh. He really did write a book.”

“Yeah, a good one, too,” Rory said and Lorelai could feel the ridges on the spine which showed that her daughter had read it several times already.

“So he came to give you this?”

“Yeah,” Rory said, her fingers fidgeting with a food container.

“And what is it you’re not telling me?”

“Nothing,” Rory said quickly before she paused, looked speculatively at her mom,  drew in a deep breath and said in a rush, “It’s kind of down to Jess that I enrolled back into Yale.”

“What? How?”

“He came to show me his book and say thanks, I guess. He claims that he wouldn’t have done it without me. That’s crap if you ask me. Jess always had the soul of a writer. He would’ve written this regardless. Which is kind of ironic considering how verbally challenged he is,” Rory rambled. “He met Logan. We all went for dinner.”

Lorelai’s eyebrows went up. “That went well I take it?”

“Logan was a jerk. Just kept needling Jess and shoving his wealth in Jess’ face.”

So Jess’ impact on Rory’s boyfriends hadn’t lessened any. He had brought the worst out in Dean and apparently did the same with Logan.

Rory looked down at her hands and said, “So Jess left and I followed him and he looked at me with such disappointment. Like he couldn’t believe what I was doing. He yelled at me about leaving Yale.”

“First thing that kid’s done that I like.”

That got another small smile from Rory. “I don’t know. He just put stuff into perspective for me. I was already feeling unhappy. The rift with you, the boredom of working at the D.A.R, the way Grandma was trying to turn me back into a little girl. It was all just so stifling. Then Jess came along, with a book and a job he loves in Philadelphia and there I was organising a Russian tea party. I guess he reminded me that I had dreams and I shouldn’t give up on them.”

Lorelai looked back down at the book, her finger smoothing over Jess’ name. For the first time, she felt a little guilty about just how much she had disliked him even if her reasons had been sound. He had threatened all that she wanted for Rory with his bad attitude and ability to turn Rory’s head. Then he had left as suddenly as he had come, hurting Rory in the process, which had been unforgiveable for Lorelai.

But perhaps there was something to him after all.

“Jess always said I would succeed. Promised me that I would be the next Christiane Amanpour once,” Rory said with a fond smile. “I needed to remember that.”

“Huh,” Lorelai said.

But the bad taste that always lingered when she thought of Jess had gone.


	4. After The Crash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the accident, Jess goes back to New York.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a LOT of feels about that scene between Jess and Luke on the bridge after the car crash. This is my way of dealing with them.

The image haunts him for the whole bus ride back to New York. Rory slumped against the passenger seat window, clutching her wrists and valiantly trying to suppress her tears of pain.

He still can’t believe it happened. Just as things were beginning to turn themselves around for him. It wasn’t as if Stars Hollow didn’t still suck, but getting to spend time with Rory helped him push down the all-consuming urge to cause trouble in whatever capacity he could. To run. His skin still itched; pulled tight over his bones until it felt tight enough to break when he walked down into the diner every morning and faced the incessantly quirky nutjobs that inhabited the town.

But then he would catch eyes with Rory, and the feeling of over whelming confinement would subside. She would give him that look – the one that said she liked him no matter how much her mom didn’t.

It was crazy really. She was the town princess, on the fast track to an Ivy League and success, and he was nothing but a messed up kid who struggled to stay in one place for too long. They shouldn’t have anything in common, but somehow they did. As soon as he’d laid eyes on her bookshelves, he’d known that there was one person in this insane asylum who had something to her. And she did. She was full of the joys of life that had little to do with the caffeine that ran through her bloodstream and all to do with how much the world had to offer. Usually, she would be someone he’d mock mercilessly, but there was something there – a connection that defied explanation but existed anyway.

And then, typical to his life, he had gone and screwed it up. He shouldn’t have given her the choice. He should have just driven back to the diner and he could’ve spent the rest of the evening flirting and drawing out her reluctant smiles when she tried so hard to be stern with him. Then again, everything he touched broke. It was a lesson he had learned long ago and he should have known that Rory would be no different.

So he had called her an ambulance, made sure she got to the hospital and was okay before he bailed. Rory didn’t need him there and Lorelai would definitely lost it on him when she turned up.

However, he couldn’t help but think that running away was a Mariano trait.

When Luke had found him, Jess had already made his mind up. He would go back to New York. Back to Liz flaking out on him and a life of roaming the streets rather than being home. It was this thought that made him realise just how he had settled into his life with Luke. He still hated school, still hated busybodies like Taylor Doose, but for the first time since he could remember, he hadn’t felt the urge to be outside, to walk incessantly until he could no longer think or to lose himself on a park bench. Luke’s apartment had felt like home. The first one he’d truly had.

His uncle had tried to fight him on it, had tried to get him to stay, but Jess had seen the truth in his eyes. He knew that Jess leaving was probably for the best. He had hurt Rory Gilmore and that was an unforgivable act.

Luke had pulled him into a tight but awkward hug when the bus arrived. Neither of them had been any good at verbalising their feelings, but Jess knew that Luke blamed himself. That he felt as if he had failed Jess somehow. It wasn’t true, of course. Luke couldn’t have fixed him. Jess had fallen to the wayside long before he ever reached Stars Hollow.

The bus pulled into the Port Authority Terminal and Jess grabbed his bag, slinging it over his shoulder and heading down into the subway. Part of him settled now that he was back in the bustling anonymity of the city. No more piercing stares or judging looks or muttered comments about hoodlums. He was back to being an unremarkable member of the pack.

He could hear the shouting before he even made it up the first flight of stairs. The latest lover in Liz’s life yelling about not wanting her son getting in the way. That he thought she had gotten rid of him for good.

Shoving his hand into his pocket, Jess griped tightly onto the coin that he’d been carrying around for months now. It was stupid really. Rory hadn’t even been impressed by his dumb magic trick, but he’d kept the coin anyway. A good memory to counterbalance all the shitty ones.

Heaving his bag more firmly onto his shoulder, Jess barged into the apartment.

“There you are,” Liz said, coming over and hovering a little uncertainly near him. “Luke called already. Wanted to know if you got back safely. Want to call him back?”

Brad or Brock or whatever his name was, glared at him from the saggy sofa. Jess looked blankly back at him for several seconds – long enough to disconcert the loser. He’d honed that skill for precisely these moments.

“Luke?” Liz prodded. “Want to call him back?”

“Maybe later,” Jess muttered as he took off for the tiny bedroom he called his own.

None of his stuff was there. No comforting piles of books to lose himself in. Just a mattress with a sleeping bag on the floor. He dropped down onto it and stared at the dingy walls. It was better this way. There was no one for him to break here.


	5. Meet The Nephew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just why is there a cute stranger breaking into her house?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little fluffy ficlet based off [this](http://dutchmoxie.co.vu/post/151391973469/dickpong-dickpong-this-stranger-just-opened) tumblr post.

The click of the lock disturbs Rory’s concentration. She’s on the sofa, hunched over her laptop and desperately trying to get this article in before the deadline. Lorelai’s made herself scarce to give Rory the time she needs to get it written and Luke’s at the diner as usual. They have both promised not to return until dinner time so she has plenty of time to work.

Peering fiercely at the screen, Rory frowns as the door opens. Has there been some kind of emergency? Her mom would usually call her if something had happened or at least give her a warning that she’s coming back. Paul Anka putters over to the door, which isn’t unusual. He might be a strange dog, but his most doglike behaviour is reserved for people entering the house.

It’s the silence that gains Rory’s attention. Her mom would never be this quiet entering the house. There would be an apology called out as she opened the door followed by a running commentary on whatever had sent her home. Leaning back on the sofa, Rory tilts her head backwards so she can see who it is.

The resulting glance has her scrambling to her feet and lifting her laptop over her head to wield as some kind of weapon. Probably not very effective but better than the notepad she has resting next to it. It’s something at least to fight off the stranger who has somehow robbed either Lorelai or Luke, stolen their keys, and has now come to clean out the house.

And yes, it’s weird that he’s bent down to stroke Paul Anka behind the ears, but just because he’s a burglar doesn’t mean he can’t like dogs, right?

Her resulting movement gets the stranger’s attention. He looks up from Paul Anka, spots her and clearly bites back a smile. “Huh,” he says before turning around and leaving.

Confused, Rory rushes to the window and sees the guy walking back down the drive. Laptop still in hand, she bursts out of the front door, sprints down the porch steps and confronts him. “Who are you? How did you get those keys? What have you done to my mom? Or is it Luke? Did you rob the diner and then decide to try your luck with his house?”

There’s a definite smirk on the guy’s face now and Rory tries not to notice just how handsome he is. It’s hard when the late Fall sun is shining on his face, making his brown eyes light up. For a potential criminal, he’s hot.

“So, you think I stole these keys right?”

“Well, yeah,” she says, not so sure now he’s staring at her like she’s crazy.

“Right,” he says with a small nod. “And you decide to come out here and confront me with a _laptop_? Not a baseball bat or kitchen knife, but a laptop.”

“It was the heaviest thing to hand,” she replies defensively.

“Of course it was.” He shakes his head. “Only in Stars Hollow would someone actively confront a potential burglar. And with a laptop.”

“Hey,” she says with a small pout. “I’ve lived in big cities! I’m not just some small town girl!”

“Oh yeah? Like where?”

Rory puts her chin in the air. “New York.”

“Let me guess? Upper East Side, right?”

She doesn’t want to reward his smug question with an affirmative answer, but that is where she lived until recently. In the flat that grandma and grandpa had brought when she finally landed a job at the _New York Times_. So she stays quiet, hoping more than expecting him not to call her bluff.

His smirk morphs into a full grin at her silence. “Yeah, thought so. That hardly makes you a hardened New York native.”

Narrowing her eyes, she’s determined to put him on the back foot. “Let me guess, you live in what? A town a little smaller than Hartford and you think it qualifies you to judge the inhabitants Stars Hollow?”

“Lower East Side. Although I’m currently based in Philly.”

“Oh,” she says, subdued before rallying with, “Well, still doesn’t explain why you have keys to my house.”

“Did Luke not mention me? I thought he or Lorelai might have told you that I was coming. You’re Rory right? I’ve heard a lot about you.”

She huffs and regrets bringing the laptop out with her. She really wants to put her hands on her hips and convey her irritation with this conversation in a way that holding a laptop doesn’t allow. “Obviously, no one has told me about you or I wouldn’t be confused right now.”

“I’m Jess. Jess Mariano. Luke’s nephew.”

She has heard about him. He and Luke reconnected a couple of years back after Liz moved to Stars Hollow. She had already headed off to Yale and had missed all the times he’d come to visit Stars Hollow. She had, however, read his book. Luke had come back from a trip to see him clutching a copy of a book that he had presented to Rory the next time he saw her, claiming that he wanted an educated opinion on whether it was any good or not. There had been a proud set to his face that meant he wouldn’t care if she declared it was rubbish, he was still impressed that his nephew had published a short novel. However, Rory had liked it. Really enjoyed how fresh it felt and she had eagerly looked out for, and purchased, Jess Mariano’s next two novels.

“The writer,” she remarks a little breathlessly before mentally slapping a hand to her forehead at how star struck she sounds.

Jess looks even more amused now. “And you’re the Journalist.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s me,” she says a little awkwardly. “So…er…do you want to come in?”

“Sure,” he replies.

By the time Luke and Lorelai get home a couple of hours later, Rory and Jess have settled into a comfortable routine. He’s sprawled out on the floor, reading a book and petting Paul Anka, while she’s actually managing to get her article finished. It’s the first time she’s ever been able to write something so pressing in company, but Jess has this aura about him that makes her want to write.

She sneaks a peek at him out of the corner of her eye as he gets to his feet to greet Luke and her mom, appreciating the attractive picture he makes. As he takes a bag of groceries from Luke, Jess catches her eye and gives her a little smile that is too sexy for her own good.

Rory hopes that he’s sticking around for longer than the weekend.


	6. Matching Costumes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inadvertent matching Halloween costumes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the delightful @aliceofalonso for the prompt: “we turn up at the same halloween party separately but wearing coordinating costumes and now everyone thinks we’re dating"

“There you go,” Chris said, flinging a costume bag across the room to Jess.

“What’s that?”

“Your costume.”

“Huh,” he said, looking into the bag in confusion. “For what?”

“Trick or treating,” Chris said with exasperated sarcasm. “The _party_ , Jess! The one we got invited to. The one you agreed to go to. The one that could made a big difference in Truncheon breaking into new circles.”

Jess had no recollection of a party invitation. He was pretty sure he would remember agreeing to go to one. A Halloween party at that. He pretty much hated parties and the enforced socialisation that occurred because of them. He definitely hated Halloween parties on principal.

“Told you he wouldn’t remember,” Matt said, opening the fridge and getting a soda. “He barely remembers anything he’d want to attend when he’s writing, let alone something like this.”

Chris rubbed the back of his neck in frustration. “Just wear it, Jess. And no you can’t not come. We _all_ need to be there. You cannot pull your reclusive writer bullshit for this. _Especially_ for this party.”

“Why not?” he asked curiously.

“Because it’s for that online publication. You know, the one that wrote the really positive book review of _The Subsect_ a couple of months ago that garnered new interest and we had to publish a second and third run. If any of us from Truncheon has to go then it’s you.”

Jess grimaced. He remembered the book review. How excited Chris and Matt had become. It was the first proper book review for Truncheon Books in a large publication – even if it was only an online one. They had printed out a copy and framed it to put in the office. He’d never told them that he actually hadn’t read it. Knew that they wouldn’t really understand why he wouldn’t want to read a positive review for his book. He didn’t even really understand why. Perhaps it was what _The Subsect_ represented. How it had been his way of dealing with all the suppressed emotions that had poured out of him after he’d learned not to compartmentalise everything to an unhealthy degree. If he could rewrite it now then he knew he’d write it differently.

Anticipating the slew of excuses he was about to come up with, Chris pointed a finger at him. “You’re coming, you’re wearing that damn costume and you’re not complaining. This is not voluntary, Jess. We’re going up to New York tomorrow and we’re attending – _all_ of us!”

Groaning, Jess walked into his room. There was no point arguing with Chris when he was that adamant. It never worked and it lead to a nasty atmosphere in the flat and the office that lingered for days.

Tipping the bag on his bed, he examined what Chris had got for him to wear from the Costume store. Hopefully, it was something generic and not too embarrassing.

“You’re fucking kidding me!” He exclaimed, stomping back into the living room.

“They didn’t have much to choose from. It was that or a Big Bird costume,” Chris explained with an amused twinkle in his eye that Jess didn’t trust.

“You’re trying to tell me that they didn’t have a cowboy hat or something. I could’ve just stuck that on my head.”

“Nope. They had two things in your size left. I think I chose the better of the two.”

Jess narrowed his eyes but there was no twitching of Matt’s lips which always happened when they tried to bullshit him. “How about I just go in my leather jacket, black jeans and Doc Martins. I’ll be Joe Strummer or someone.”

“It’s a literary themed party,” Chris said.

“I’ll be a punk who wrote a book.”

“Isn’t that what you are now?” Matt deadpanned.

“Just dress in that,” Chris said in a tired voice.

“It’s a regency costume! Who the hell am I supposed to be?”

“Darcy?” Chris suggested with a smirk.  

“Definitely not Bingley,” Matt interjected.

Jess glared at his unrepentant roommates before retreating back to his room.

\----------

The fourth person that night stopped Rory with, “If you’re looking for your boyfriend, then I saw him heading into the kitchen about five minutes ago.”

She frowned but trying to explain that she wasn’t actually with someone another time to a slighter drunker person was beyond her. So she just nodded and said, “Thanks.”

“He’s very swoon worthy!” drunk lady said. “Those shoulders in that tight coat. Makes you just want to hang onto them during sex. Go get your Darcy, Lizzie.”

With a slightly incredulous look on her face, Rory decided to deal with the costume misunderstanding instead and said, “Oh I’m not Lizzie. I’m Anne Elliot.”

The drunk woman stopped and looked confused. “Anne Elliot?”

“ _Persuasion_ ,” Rory prodded, happy to get the conversation away from sex with some stranger with good shoulders.

“Oh. I’m not sure who the hero is in that book. I don’t think I read that Austen book.”

“You should,” she said. “It’s very good. A little more tormented than _Pride and Prejudice_.”

“Rory!” Paris called, saving her from having to deal with this conversation any longer. “Guess who’s here?”

Her heart sank. It was Logan wasn’t it? It was the one person she could imagine turning up at Hugo’s party and everyone assuming they were together. She hadn’t seen him since her graduation at Yale just over two years ago, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to just yet either.

“Logan?” she ventured hesitantly.

Paris gave her a scornful look. “Logan? Why would that privileged playboy be here? That’d mean giving up the _delights_ of sunny California.”

Before Paris could say any more, Rory’s attention was grabbed by Doyle and three other men coming out of the kitchen. She zeroed in on the artfully dishevelled black hair and the fine shoulders that were outlined by a tight regency era coat. She had always been able to find Jess in a crowd. There was something about him that made her aware of where he was at all times. She’d hated that when she had been suppressing her attraction to him. A pair of soulfully dark brown eyes looked up and locked on hers.

“Jess?” she all but whispered.

“Yep. The Kerouac wannabe himself and he’s _not_ dressed a Beat.”

Rory hesitated for a moment. She wanted nothing more than to go over to him, to see what he was up to now, but the way they had last parted weighed heavily on her mind. It always had; more than Logan walking away after the rejected proposal or the way Dean had broken up with her in front of an audience _again_. She had not been in a good place when she had gone down to Philadelphia. Had wanted to hurt Logan in the hopes that it would make her feel just a little bit better. She hadn’t thought about what her actions would do to Jess, not until he was looking at her, hurt in his eyes, as she declared her love for Logan. He was right – he _hadn’t_ deserved that. Not even after the way he’d just left Stars Hollow without saying goodbye all those years before.

However, her worries that he would hold that last meeting against her were dispelled when a small, fond smile broke out on his lips and the familiarity of it burst through her, leaving her slightly breathless.

He broke away from his friends and walked over. “Well, isn’t this just a blast from the past,” he said with a teasing amusement he always managed to pull off. “You must be the girlfriend everyone keeps telling me that I just missed.”

She grinned, happiness bubbling through her that there was no anger between them. “Jess Mariano in a Halloween costume. I never thought I’d see the day.”

“Yeah. Me neither. I wasn’t given much of a choice. Chris,” he said, pointing back to one of his friends, “Made it obvious that it wasn’t optional.”

“You went for Austen, Bukowski?” Paris asked.

He tore his eyes away from Rory and turned towards her friend. “I always told you that she’d have liked the Beats.”

Paris barked out a laugh. She had always preferred Jess to any of Rory’s other boyfriends. Said that he at least had some independent thought, even if it was predictable and derivative.

“Nice to see you’ve moved on to conquering worlds,” Jess said, taking in Paris’ Daenerys Targaryen outfit. “Are you with Jon Snow over there?”

“The Mother of Dragons seemed fittingly ambitious enough for me. And yeah, Doyle’s my boyfriend.

“Cool guy,” Jess said.

“He’s not bad,” Paris said with a typical shrug which made Rory and Jess both smile. “So which Austen hero are you then? Please don’t say Edmund Bertram.”

It was Jess’ turn to laugh. “Surprisingly enough, no. I don’t think I’d make a very convincing Edmund. If anyone asks then I’ve been saying Captain Wentworth. But most just presume I’m Mr Darcy.

“You and Anne Elliot here are even more suited than anyone ever thought.”

Jess turned back to Rory. “You’re Anne Elliot?”

“Persuasion is my favourite Austen novel,” she said with a shrug.

“We always did have similar literary tastes.”

A pang of sadness hit Rory in the chest. They had always been so in tune with each other that it had felt like their relationship should have been easy. However, it’d been anything but. They’d met too young when she’d worried too much about what people thought of her and he’d been emotionally incapable of opening up. It had been the wrong place and the wrong time for them. Always had been.

_It is what it is. You. Me._

His words from Philadelphia three years ago flittered through her mind and the desire to change that bad timing had her threading her arm through his. “So are those your business partners? I never got to meet them before.”

Jess looked at her thoughtfully as if trying to work out her motives so she smiled openly at him and said, “I’m glad you’re here. I did wonder if Hugo would invite you. He was blown away by _The Subsect_ when I gave it to him.”

His expression brightened at her enthusiasm towards him. “You gave him the book? We did wonder just how it ended up on someone’s radar.”

“Of course,” she replied blithely. “I give everyone a copy.”

“It’s true,” Paris interjected. “I got it for a birthday gift. It was better than I expected. Not some _On The Road_ rip off like I feared.”

Jess ducked his head and she squeezed his arm. He had always been so bad at taking a compliment. He looked searchingly at her and she couldn’t help but wonder if he was debating whether she was being open with him or not this time about whether she was involved with someone else. That thought hurt her more than she thought possible.

“So any plans for another?” she asked.

“I’m working on it.”

“Make sure you send it to me when you get it published. I’ll pass it onto The Times’ literary review team.”

A grin broke out on his lips. “You made it to the New York Times?”

“I did!” she said proudly. “Started two months ago.”

“So when do you get posted out to the Middle East, Christiane?”

“You never did drive straight at me in the street screaming in a foreign language,” she teased. “So I’ve ended up settling for a more sedentary life on Features.”

He laughed then. “We can practice later if you like.”

Deciding to place more value on his words than he possibility meant, Rory said, “I’d like that. We should discuss it tomorrow at breakfast.” Ignoring the presence of Paris, she whispered, “There’s no one else.”

“Yeah?” he murmured. “There’s no one for me either.”

He pulled his arm out from under her hand and slid it around her waist, pulling her closer into him. She leaned into his side, unable to keep the grin of her face.

“Ugh,” Paris said. “If you two are going to be disgustingly romantic then I’m going to talk to the idiots dumb enough to be in business with you, Mariano.”

“They’d like that,” he replied, not taking his eyes of Rory. “They’ve heard a lot about you over the years.”

“Great,” Paris snarked. “Preconceived ideas given by a Beats worshipper. I need to rectify that.”

“You sure about this?” he asked her once Paris had gone.

“Yes,” she said and realised she was. There was nothing holding her back this time. No fears about Jess, or anxiety about what others would think or guilt towards Dean. “This is our time.”

Smiling, he bent and kissed her softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm currently taking Literati ficlet prompts over on [tumblr](http://rumaan.tumblr.com/)


	7. Red Vines and Jon Snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess hated seeing Rory so lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the lovely @allisonswan for the prompt: Bets were made and the loser wears whatever the winner picks as their costume. Here's some Jess as Jon Snow for you ;)
> 
> Since the trailer for the revival has come out, I've written this with some of the information we got from there. Just pushing Rory's return date back to autumn.

“Jon Snow,” Jess said flatly, staring at the costume Rory had dumped on the counter at Luke’s.

“Yep,” she said far too perkily.

“Did you go out and find the most anti-Jess costume you could?”

“Hey!” she objected. “I totally could have gotten a worse costume. You could be the Cookie Monster or Captain America or Ramsay Bolton!”

“Snow,” he corrected absent-mindedly.

“What?”

“Ramsay Snow. He was a bastard, too.”

“But legitimised,” Rory argued.

“By Tommen Baratheon. Just as much a bastard as any of them. Jon was legitimised by Robb Stark so if you’re going to call Ramsay a Bolton then you should call Jon a Stark.”

Rory pointed her finger gleefully at him. “Ah, but Tommen is the recognised king of Westeros whereas Robb is an unsuccessful dead rebel king. Tommen gets to legitimise bastards whereas Robb doesn’t.”

“Am I really hearing this?” Lorelai asked, pushing the costume to the left of her while she eagerly reached out for the mug of coffee Luke held out to her. “Is Jess Mariano, former teenage hooligan of Stars Hollow, really arguing about a dragon fantasy series?”

“I prefer misunderstood youth,” Jess quipped.

The small furrow that appeared in between Rory’s eyebrows reminded Jess that she hadn’t been home for a long while. That the change in his and Lorelai’s relationship was still strange for her. It was the slightly lost way that Rory had when she walked around Stars Hollow that had led to the costume sitting on the counter in the first place. He hated to see her looking so unsure of herself that he had created the stupid Halloween candy bet, knowing that he would lose, but that it would cheer Rory up in the process.

After all these years, he still hated seeing her upset. He didn’t like to analyse why too deeply.

“So why do you have a Jon Snow costume anyway?” Lorelai asked.

“Her fault,” he replied, pointing to Rory. “Apparently she hates me.”

“If I hated you then I would be making you dress up as Littlefinger or something. At least I got you the most emo character on the show. Your brooding credentials will remain intact.”

“Gee thanks.”

\------------

Rory couldn’t help but stop when she noticed Jess coming across the square towards her. It was unfair that he still had the power to affect her like that after all these years. You’d think she would have gotten used to just how attractive he was. The costume she chose might well have backfired, too. He had always swaggered well, but add a cloak and a sword and it was magnified to unacceptable levels.

“He’s still got it,” Lane said slyly next to her.

She opened her mouth to deny it but nothing came out. It was true, he still had it.

Lane nudged her and said, “You know, in the three years he’s lived here, there’s been no one serious.”

Her heart leapt a little at her friend’s words, just as it had when she had bumped into him for the first time in a long while and had noticed that he didn’t wear a wedding ring. It’s not that she wanted him to still be pining for her, she wasn’t that petty, but Jess always felt like the one big if in her life. The relationship that should have worked but hadn’t. So the fact that he wasn’t tied down to someone else had felt like a sign. Something she had been dithering about whether she wanted to act on or not.

“He also has never taken part in any of the town events until now,” Lane added.

“He’s only taking part now because he lost a bet.”

Lane gave her a supremely unimpressed look. “Yeah a bet that was so steeped in your favour that he might as well not even bothered.”

Hope rose in Rory’s breast. Lane had a point. There was no way Jess was ever going to eat more red vines that she, which he knew too. Yet, he had still come up with the idea and given her power over dressing him up for Halloween – something he would also have known would involve a proper costume and attendance to the Stars Hollow Halloween Extravaganza. It all suggested something that she hadn’t allowed herself to dwell on just as she had skirted around her reaction to Jess since coming back from London. Refusing to deal with the way she would notice if he was in a room within a few seconds of entering, or the way butterflies would fill her stomach when he gave her that little smile he had always seemed to reserve for her. However, the longer she was around him, the more she found herself wondering if they could rekindle something. She wasn’t opposed to the idea and this whole bet implied that he wasn’t either.

Jess finally reached them and grimaced. “Why did I agree to this? If I have one more person shout ‘you know nothing’ at me then I’m going to rediscover my youth and actually burn this thing down.”

She patted his chest consolingly. “If it’s any comfort then it’s because you make a very convincing Jon Snow. That pout is perfect.”

Lane snorted, tried to cover it up and ended up saying, “Oh look, Kwan is calling me. See you both later.”

It was a super unsubtle attempt to leave them alone, but Rory didn’t care. It was time she became more proactive in her personal life and she planned to start with Jess.

Threading her arm through his, she asked, “So what are you going to win me first?”

“Have you forgotten how bad I am throwing things?”

She laughed and rectified her question. “What am I going to win you then?”

“Yeah, you also seem to have forgotten that I’ve seen you throw, too.”

“Okay. So what do you suggest?”

“Food and I believe Andrew has a horror genre book stool this year. We could go browse.”

“A man after my own heart,” she said enthusiastically.

And it was true. Despite how complicated they had been when they were younger, Jess had always been the person who had understood her the most. She had never had to pretend with him and nothing had changed now.


	8. But I Like Where I'm Living

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rory, drunk and locked out, takes a chance on a neighbour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the amazing @aliceofalonso for the prompt: It’s like 3AM and my roommate locked me out of the house and I forgot my keys and I’m really drunk pls take pity on me and let me crash at your place for the night o’ neighbor of mine.
> 
> Title from Leonard Cohen's Famous Blue Raincoat.

Rory giggled as she pounded on the neighbour down the hall’s door. She didn’t know what was so funny about this situation other than the fact that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this drunk, that Paris was still obsessed with putting fifteen different locks on a door, and that she slept with earplugs and so couldn’t hear Rory hammering on the door to be let in.

She wasn’t sure why she had picked this particular neighbour’s door to knock on, other than the fact that she heard the Clash blasting out periodically and that they had a lot of books delivered to them, which she knew because the mailman would drop hers off first.  Her mom was a big fan of going with gut instinct, so Rory had decided to do that tonight. Also, she couldn’t ask their nearest neighbour if she could crash on their couch because he was a creep who’d asked both her and Paris if they liked threesomes. Plus, she couldn’t stay out in the hallway because this wasn’t the nicest neighbourhood in New York but it was all she and Paris could afford on their budget right now.

“What?” a voice snarled huskily, and a very dishevelled head of dark hair peeked out and glared blearily at her.

Startled by the hostility, Rory’s eyes blinked rapidly and she took a step back. “I’m really sorry,” she said a little hesitantly before her nervousness kicked in. “But I left my keys at home and my roommate is sleeping and she can’t hear me because she always sleeps with earplugs in and there are like a hundred different locks on our door, so even I could pick a lock, there’s no way I could pick that many and I don’t have anywhere else to go because my family are all in Connecticut and I just-”

She trailed off, unsure of exactly where she was going and distracted by just how much the hallway was spinning.

“You look like you’re about to barf,” her neighbour said. “Guess you better come in.”

“Thanks,” she said before her stomach rolled and she dashed inside.

Luckily, the layout of his apartment was identical to hers, and she found the bathroom in time to lose the contents of her stomach in the toilet.

Pale and sweating, she emerged ten minutes later, to find him leaning against the doorframe, a glass of water in his hand. “Feel better?” he asked, an amused little smile on his face.

“Yeah,” she said shakily, feeling out of sorts and embarrassed, but taking the water he held out to her and sipping at it slowly. “Thanks.”

It didn’t help her jangling nerves now she had managed to get a good look at her neighbour. He was really attractive. The kind of impossibly hot that you only saw on television screens, which was totally unfair considering she probably looked like she had crawled out of a dumpster.

“I take it you need somewhere to crash?” he asked.

“Please,” she replied, knowing that she sounded a little pathetic but she felt it right at this moment. The last time she’d drunk this heavily was back at Yale with Logan. It had been nice to let her hair down again and just enjoy herself with her new colleagues on the paper, but she had forgotten how wretched she felt once the alcohol started to work its way through her system.

“Need anything to settle your stomach?”

“Just this, thanks.”

“My roommate is away in Philadelphia at the moment, so you’re welcome to crash in his bed if you want. Not sure you want to risk it on our sofa. It’s really old and lumpy.”

As she started to slowly sober up, the embarrassment of imposing on her neighbour like this hit her. “If you don’t mind. I’m being really inconvenient, I know. I’m not sure I deserve kindness after banging on your door in the middle of the night.”

The smile was back and she was fascinated by it, aware that she was staring but unable to stop.

“No biggie,” he said. “It’s not like I would leave you in the hallway in this building.”

Rory gave him a shy smile and hovered ineffectively as he quickly stripped his roommate’s bed and put fresh bedding on.

“There you go,” he said, popping out of the room for a minute or two and coming back with a packet of painkillers and a bottle of water. “Keep hydrated and I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Thanks,” she said, as she flopped onto the bed. “I’m sorry for being so much trouble.”

He gave her a small nod and closed the door behind him.

\------------

The banging on the door woke Rory up. At first she wasn’t sure if it was her head or the actual door, but the sound of Paris yelling, “Open up, you pervert! I know you have Rory in there! Her bag is outside your door!”

Stumbling as quickly as she could out of bed (which wasn’t helped by the way the sheets had worked themselves around her causing her to half fall out of the bed), she dragged herself out of the bedroom and into the living just in time to see Paris brandishing a cast-iron skillet in their sleepy neighbour’s face.

“Alright, Deviant, where is she?” Paris shouted. “If you’ve so much as harmed a hair on her head, then you’ll regret it.

“Paris!” Rory said as loudly as she could, which caused her wince and clutch her head.

Paris whirled around and spotted her. “There you are! Did he touch you? Molest you? Force you in here against your will?”

“Calm down,” she said, squinting in the bright light of the living room. “He – sorry, I don’t know your name,” she said, turning towards where he stood, still holding the door open and watching Paris with obvious entertainment.  In the cold light of morning, he wasn’t any less gorgeous than he’d been last night and the tug of attraction was strong but inconvenient. This really wasn’t the time to develop a crush.

“Jess,” he replied.

“Jess kindly opened the door to me in the middle of night because I left my keys at home and let me stay here.”

“Oh,” Paris said deflating, before she eyed the room Rory had emerged from suspiciously. “He _kindly_ let you sleep in his bed?”

“My roommate is away and his bed is better than the couch. I didn’t harm your roommate, scout’s honour,” he said, putting his hands up with an obvioisly faux innocent facial expression that had Paris narrowing her eyes dangerously.

“Rory? This true?”

She was too hungover to deal with Paris right now but she nodded tiredly. “I’m going to get the painkillers now because my head hurts too much. Say sorry to Jess, Paris,” she ordered before she added a softer, “And thanks for looking out for me.”

Ten minutes later, as the painkillers were kicking in and the tempting aroma of coffee was permeating the air, Rory ventured out of the room again. Jess was pottering around the kitchen, his t-shirt tightening nicely over broad shoulders and firm back as he stretched up to reach something. She tried not to drawl.

“Here,” he said, passing her a mug of coffee once he’d turned around. “You look like you could use this.”

She took a big slurp and hummed her appreciation. “You make a good cup of coffee. It’s dangerous that I know that. I’ll be bugging you to fulfil my caffeine needs,” she said as flirty as she could manage. What the point of having a hot neighbour if you weren’t going to take advantage of it and flirt with him?

He laughed and gave her an openly interested look. “Come over whenever you want.”

Butterflies erupted in her stomach. It had been a little too long since she’d been this attracted to someone and the anticipation that this could go somewhere fun had her smiling brightly at him. “I’ll hold you to that. This is the best cup of coffee I’ve had this side of Stars Hollow.”

He froze in the act of grabbing eggs out of the fridge.

“What?” she asked.

“Stars Hollow, Connecticut?” he asked in a slightly strangled tone.

“Yeah,” she said bemused before continuing on excitedly, “Why have you heard of it? No one’s ever heard of it! Have you been there?”

“My uncle lives there. Luke. Luke Danes.”

“No!” she gasped. “Luke is your uncle! He’s engaged to my mom.”

“This morning just gets weirder and weirder,” Jess muttered.

Rory paused wondering whether the connection should faze her. It would be awkward if they dated and it didn’t work out. For a start there would be a wedding she was pretty sure they would both be attending. Mentally shrugging, she decided that it was no more awkward than him being her neighbour. She’d allowed her personal life to slide recently and she’d vowed to be more proactive in not doing that anymore. Jess seemed like a good place to start.

“No wonder you make such good coffee. Did Luke teach you?” she asked.

“I changed my brand after going up to see him a couple of years ago, but the ability to make it well must run in the genes.”

“As does rescuing Gilmore girls apparently. The amount of times Luke has helped my mom out of a scrape.”

He grinned and said, “It would be a shame if I failed to live up to the family connection in such a promising situation.”

Rory flushed a little at the heated look he gave her. The chemistry between them was instantaneous and a little overwhelming but she wasn’t going to back off. She was tired of playing it safe in her love life.

A slightly evil plan grew in her mind. “Hey, want to freak Luke out?”

He eyed her in amusement and the little smile she remembered from the night before came back out. “It’s Uncle Luke. The answer to that question is always yes.”

“Pass me your cell.”


	9. Snow Meet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess would recognise that voice anywhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the lovely @queenmaedhbh for the prompt: you walked here in a blizzard to get your hot chocolate but you forgot your wallet at home, here, let me buy your drink for you - literati (it could be coffee).
> 
> Unsurprisingly, I went with coffee over hot chocolate :)

“Shit!”

The muttered expletive had Jess looking up from where he was typing away in the corner of the small coffee shop. He hadn’t even realised anyone else had come in, which was a surprise frankly, considering the blizzard that was raging outside.

“Dammit, dammit, _dammit_!”

The language might have been stronger than any he was used to hearing out of that particular mouth, but the bright blue eyes that glared angrily down into her purse were familiar.

“Rory?” he queried, saving his work and getting up to come where she hovered just inside the doorway.

She turned his way at the words and the frustrated bled away to shock, which wasn’t surprising, considering the last time he’d seen her was four years ago in Philadelphia.

“Jess?”

“Hey, stranger,” he said. “What’s happened?”

“I left my wallet at home and I really _really_ need a cup of coffee right now.”

He couldn’t help the smirk. That explained the anger.

“Here, let me buy you a cup.”

“Oh I couldn’t,” she said, her cheeks a little flushed and her hands fluttering a little awkwardly. He could tell that she was remembering the last time they’d met; when they’d kissed and she’d freaked out and divulged her real reason for coming to the open evening at Truncheon books.

“Relax,” he said, not liking how stiff she looked in his presence. “It’s only a cup of coffee. Plus, I can’t release a non-caffeinated Rory Gilmore onto the streets. That would be dangerous for the civilians.”

She puffed out a small laugh at that and the rabbit-in-the-headlights look disappeared from her face.

“I’m not the Hulk,” she said protesting.

“You sure? I’ve seen you without caffeine and it’s not a pretty sight. It’s practically my civic duty to make sure you get some coffee inside you.”

“And Jess Mariano is all about civic duty,” she said teasingly.

“Pay my taxes and everything.”

She smiled at that and said, “I’d be really grateful if you could buy me a coffee. I need it this morning.”

“Yeah? What are you doing out in this anyway?” he asked as they walked up to the counter together.

“I’m one of the few who can walk into the office so there’s no escape for me. And the paper is really short staffed today.”

“Luke said you’d made it to _The New York Times_. Congrats, Dorothy,” he said.

She placed her order and said, “Thanks, Jess. I appreciate it.”

“Don’t rush off just yet,” he said. “Surely you can spare ten minutes.”

Rory dithered and then looked at the snow that was falling thickly outside. “I can drink this here,” she said decidedly.

“It’d be a shame to waste such a good excuse for being late.”

“So what are you doing in NYC?” she asked, as they sat back at his table.

“Meeting with my agent but then this happened, so I’m kind of marooned until it clears. I got sick of the hotel room.”

“Agent? You have an agent now?”

“Yeah,” he said fidgeting with his coffee cup self-consciously.

“Jess! That’s so great. So you getting another book published? I read your second. It was even better than the first.”

“Attempting to. Chris and Matthew bugged me into aiming to get published by a larger, more mainstream publishing house this time. Hence the need for an agent.”

“Any success?”

He shrugged. “A couple of offers. That’s what I’m meant to be meeting the agent about. To go through them.”

She grinned then. “Look at you, going to be a big shot writer. You better not forget about me when you hit the big time.”

“There’s no chance of that,” he said.

Their eyes locked gaze and it was an intense as it had ever been between them. Any thought that Rory would ever stop getting under his skin was banished. He was pretty sure he could bump into her when they were ninety and all the powerful feelings that always bubbled up within him when he saw her would be just as strong.

Her phone beeped, breaking the moment and he took a gulp of his coffee to try and dispel the emotions that swirled inside him.

“The office,” she said with a groan. “I’ve got to go, Jess, but here’s my number,” she said, scribbling on a napkin and sliding it across the table to him. “If you’re around for a couple more days, let’s get dinner. It’d be nice to catch up properly.”

Her words were casual but her tone didn’t quite pull it off. At least he wasn’t the only one affected by the chemistry that still existed between them. His fingers accidentally brushed hers as he grabbed the napkin and her hand jumped back as if scolded. He pretended he didn’t notice and said, “I’m here until the weekend. I’d love to catch up.”

Rory’s eyes darted to his lips briefly before she said a little softly, “It’s really great to see you, Jess.”

“Yeah,” he replied, wanting nothing more than to catch her to him and see if her kisses still had the power to make him forget everything around them. “You, too, Rory.”

 


	10. Not The Same

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lorelai is keen to point out their differences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have such mixed feelings about the revival. There was lots I loved especially about Emily and Lorelai's story, but I was disappointed with how Rory was portrayed. So this is part me trying to sort my feelings out and part a response to a conversation I had with @ribbon-couture on tumblr.

“You’re not me, you do realise that right?”

Rory pulled her eyes away from where Jess was entertaining his sister Doula and her friends with scary ghost stories to her mom, who now sat next to her on the sofa.

“What?” she asked.

“You don’t have to do what I did with you.”

She frowned not quite following what her mom was getting at.

Lorelai tilted her head in Jess’ direction. “You don’t have to wait around until Emily is fully grown to follow your heart.”

“But-” Rory stumbled a little, trying to get her words in order. She had never felt guilty that her mom had never seemed to have serious relationships until Rory had hit sixteen. To be honest, she had never noticed. It was only when she she’d fully grown up that she realised just how much Lorelai had sacrificed for her in the relationship department and the thought had made her uncomfortable. “But that worked with me. We were a team and I never felt insecure about my place in your life.”

Lorelai smiled a little sadly. “It worked for _us._ That doesn’t mean it has to work like that for you and Emily. Besides the situation was different.”

“Different how?”

Rory sometimes wondered just how she’d ended up in such a similar position to her mom. A single mother who was bringing up her child with minimal input from the father. Although at least Logan had the excuse that the Atlantic was a big barrier to him being a more active father. And whenever he was Stateside, he did come to visit. Usually with Odette, who didn’t seem to trust Logan to come alone. Not that Rory could blame her and she flushed with shame once more at just how bad her behaviour had been in regards to Odette.

“For a start, you’re not sixteen. I had to put my love life on hold because I was already judged for being a teenage mom. Imagine if I’d had boyfriends to boot. You’re a college graduate in her early thirties. No one is going to whisper about how much of a slut you are if you want to date.”

“I hate people,” Rory muttered as she felt the anger boil up at the realisation that her mom had probably had to face such slurs.

“Hey,” Lorelai said fondly. “It worked for me. I didn’t feel like I missing out on anything. Plus I had the endless hope that somehow Christopher would finally get his life in order, settle down and actually want us. You aren’t hoping for any of those things with Logan.”

“I think I’ve done enough damage to Odette to actively wish for her marriage to break up.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, kid.”

“Maybe if I’d been a little harder on myself this would never have happened,” she said but knew that she didn’t really mean it. No matter just how sordid the details around Emily’s conception were, she would never regret having her daughter. Emily had given her a purpose, motivated her to stop flailing ineffectively between job opportunities and actually focus on something. She had managed to publish her book – well, really a collection of essays that detailed what was so special about her bond with her mom – and her work at the Stars Hollow Gazette had then led to an actual proper job at the Hartford Courant, which allowed her to continue to live in Stars Hollow and raise Emily but not give up her journalism dreams. All in all, she had built a good life out of the mess she’d been in two years ago.

“Maybe don’t continue to be so hard on yourself then,” her mom modified. “And don’t close yourself down to opportunities.”

Lorelai nodded meaningfully in Jess’ direction once more.

“I think that ship sailed a long time ago,” Rory muttered, mortified that she hadn’t quite managed to keep the feelings that had flared up for Jess again when he’d helped edit her book as secret as she’d hoped.

“Rory and Jess: The Early Years may have finished, but it doesn’t mean there couldn’t be a revival. Jess never stopped caring, everyone can see that,” Lorelai said, holding her hand up to stop the interjection Rory had been about to make. “I’m not saying he’s been pining away for you. Far from it. But he will always want the best for you and just as working closely with him seemed to have brought some of your love for him towards the surface, I think I can safely say it’s the same for him.”

“Really? You think?” she asked, trying to suppress the spark of excitement that lit up in her stomach.

“There’s a look he has that is reserved only for you. Luke worries about it.”

Rory looked doubtfully over to Jess, not daring to hope that her mom had been right, but then he caught her eye and gave her a little smile that was so fond it caused her heart to stutter.

Lorelai tapped a finger on her leg and regained her attention. “Just don’t wait until Emily is grown. Jess isn’t going to put his life on hold for you and you’re not the only woman to realise just what a good man he’s grown into.”


	11. Moving Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess helps Rory move in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was meant to be more about Jess meeting the Life And Death Brigade boys but then Paris took over. I'm not even sorry because Paris is worth so much more than the LADB.

The phone ringing was a welcome relief from staring at the same couple of paragraphs on his laptop. Jess was meant to be writing, but instead all he had managed to put down were two mediocre paragraphs that he knew would be cut.

Picking up his cell and glancing at the contact, Jess smiled a little. It was a Luke. Maybe a dose of insanity from Stars Hollow would get his muse working.

“Hey, Uncle Luke, Lorelai driven you into the deep end yet?”

There was a pause and then a voice decidedly not his uncle’s answered. “I resent that. After living with _you_ for almost two years, I’m a piece of cake.”

A decade ago, Lorelai Gilmore’s voice would have raised his hackles and something sarcastic and mean would already have been out of his mouth. But time had mellowed him as had the greater understanding that had popped up between them.

“I think we can both agree that it’s a minor miracle that, between the pair of us, Luke hasn’t been booked into the insane asylum yet.”

“Speak for yourself, I’m a delight.”

Jess laughed lightly. “Is there any other way for a Gilmore Girl to be?”

He could almost hear her grin through the phone. “Why, Jess Mariano, I think you found your charm,” she gushed in her favourite playful southern accent.

“Don’t tell Luke, he might decide to disown me still. Charm is an oxymoron for Danes.”

That got a laugh out of her. It was still strange for him how they’d managed to fall into this teasing relationship after all the hate. It wasn’t as if they’d ever talked it out, but had decided independently yet simultaneously that it was time to let go of bygones and get along for Luke’s sake.

“So what can I do for you, Aunty?”

“Ugh, don’t. That’s horrible,” Lorelai said disgustedly. “You dated my daughter, I’m not your aunt. We are not Lannisters.”

“Hey, Rory and I dated first. It’s you and Luke who went and made this awkward.”

“Let’s just agree that you will never call me that again. It’s going to make me break out in hives.”

His lips twitched. “You sure you want to give me that power?”

“Seventeen year old you, no! However, I’ll take my chances with thirty-two year old you.”

“So what can I do for you, _Lorelai_?” he repeated.

She let out a sigh of relief. “That’s better. Rory’s moving into her Queen’s apartment tomorrow and I was hoping you could give her a hand. You’re still in New York, right? Luke hasn’t mentioned you moving back to Philly.”

“Yeah, I’m still in New York. I’ve been getting more writing done here so I think the move might stick.”

“So can you help Rory out? She said she’s got some people lined up to help, but I’d feel better if someone I knew was there to keep an eye on her. She’s under strict instructions to do no heavy lifting from both me and her doctor.”

Despite the thaw in their relationship, it was still weird for Jess that Lorelai had called him with this request. That he now fell into a category of someone she could trust to check on her precious daughter. Her six months pregnant precious daughter. He still struggled to wrap his head around a pregnant Rory.

“Yeah, sure. I can head over tomorrow. Text me the address?”

“Thanks, Jess. I really appreciate it.”

“No problem, Lorelai. Tell Luke I said hi.”

Once he was off the phone, he opened his text thread with Rory

_Jess 14:02pm_

_Hey, so your mom has recruited me to help you out tomorrow. Why didn’t you say you were moving?_

_Rory 14:03pm_

_Ugh, I made her promise not to send Luke. I guess I should I have included you in that promise._

_Rory 14:04pm_

_You don’t have to come. I have people helping._

_Jess 14:05pm_

_And invoke the wrath of Lorelai Gilmore? She’s only just stopped referring to me as Damian._

_Rory 14:07pm_

_Haha. The keys should be available by noon. You need the address?_

_Jess 14:08pm_

_Your mom already sent it._

_Rory 14:09pm_

_Thanks for helping out._

\---------------

Once Jess took in the three guys helping Rory move in, he instantly knew why Lorelai had called him. From the way they were dressed and the loud I-rule-the-world way they were shouting and messing around declared that they must be Huntzberger’s friends. Jess stood and watched critically for a couple of minutes as they unloaded boxes from the removal van. Jess rolled his eyes. It was clear that they weren’t used to moving or keeping things organised.

The surprise for Jess was the calm, amused way Rory watched the chaos around her. The teenage girl he remembered from Stars Hollow would have been rushing around, stressing about her books being out of order or damaged. Then again, Rory hadn’t been that girl for a while, but it was still strange for him to see her in a completely different milieu and how that changed her behaviour. He hadn’t been a fan of it back when she should have been in Yale and wasn’t much fonder of it now. The pang of sadness for the girl he remembered hit him harder than he thought and he shook it away before crossing the street towards her.

“Jess!” she called out as she spotted him, a large smile breaking out in her face.

He ignored the way it caused his heart to race. “Hey, I see Lorelai was right to send me.”

She grimaced. “Yeah, the boys aren’t used to helping anyone move in but they’re trying.”

 _Boys?_ He thought. It was an apt expression from their behaviour but they looked a couple of years older than him and Rory.

“Rory, darl, what pile do you want this on?” The tall and apparently Australian one asked.

Jess squinted down at the box and saw that names of authors had been scribbled on the side. “Bedroom books?” he asked her.

“Yeah,” she said with a laugh. “Guess I’m still predictable.”

“Not sure what Mariano is doing on that list of authors though,” he said teasingly.

“Hush. I like to keep those books close,” she said, bumping her shoulder into his.

The Australian watched the byplay with raised eyebrows. Jess couldn’t help needling him a little. “The bedroom pile. If you’ve got the boxes split up that is.”

The guy turned towards Rory with an enquiring look. “Finn, this is my old friend Jess. Jess this is in Finn. He, Colin and Robert are helping me out.”

“Huh,” Jess said but he shook the hand that was offered before turning back to Rory. “So what do you need me to do?”

Rory bit her lip and looked anxiously at the spill of boxes on the pavement. “Perhaps you could organise the boxes. Paris will be returning with the keys soon and if she sees it like this, she’ll lose her mind. She was beginning to lose patience before she left for the real estate office.”

Jess snorted in amusement. He was sure Paris hadn’t changed and her high strung personality would not cope with this disorganised mess.

Twenty minutes later, and some order had been restored.

“Who’d have thought you’d be so good at this,” Rory remarked. “I remember Mom telling me about your unpacking when you moved into Luke’s.”

He grinned at the memory. “It’d be hard to run a publishing house like that. Even a small one like Truncheon.”

“Oh thank _God_!” came the exclaimation from across the street and both Jess and Rory looked over to where Paris was stepping out of a cab. “Someone with some fucking sense has arrived and there is a system to the madness.”

“Paris, darling, you wound me,” Finn declared dramatically.

“You’re lucky that’s all I’m doing. Why Logan thought you’d be any use is beyond me,” Paris said scornfully before she turned to Jess and said, “Mariano.”

Good to see you, Paris,” Jess said with an amused smirk.

“Did you go to prison?” Paris asked, frowning, and ignoring the glare that Rory sent her way.

“Surprisingly enough, I managed to confound everyone’s expectations and not end up in jail. Philadelphia could be considered close for some, I guess.”

“Huh. Did you join a gym then?”

He couldn’t help but look confused. “What?”

“You bulked up. Look at the size of your arms. They’re like tree trunks!”

“Paris,” Rory groaned in mortification.

“What? I’m just stating a fact. It’s not like it’s a bad thing. We needed a little more muscle around here. Did you think I was going to move your heavier furniture items with the three stooges over there?”

“ _You’re_ moving the heavy furniture?” Jess remarked a little sceptically as he took in Paris small frame.

Scowling over at him, Paris said scornfully, “You’d trust the Bullingdon Club with a sofa? If Rory hadn’t got herself knocked up then I’m not sure I’d trust you to handle the furniture. You might decide to cut and run halfway through.”

“Paris!” Rory snapped before she turned apologetic eyes towards Jess. “Sorry about Paris. She gets tetchy when around Finn, Colin and Robert for too long.”

“I don’t know how you stand them,” Paris said disdainfully. “You’d think they’d have grown up by now and stopped messing around, but nope, they still have more money than sense.”

“They don’t harm anyone,” Rory said mildly. “Besides, they’re always happy to help me.”

“I think being pregnant with Huntzberger’s spawn has made you even more deluded than usual.”

Jess smothered his smile as he saw the tension in Rory’s shoulders. “Here,” he said, patting the cushion on the armchair that was sitting on the kerb next to the removal truck. “You just sit and Paris and I will take care of everything.”

Rory heaved out a relieved sigh. “Thanks, Jess. Again, I’m glad my mom called you.”

“Yeah, why did she?” He asked, finally voicing the question that had been bugging him since yesterday. “You should have called me. You know I’m in the city. We have plans for dinner next Friday.”

“I didn’t want to bother you,” she said, her eyes not quite meeting his.

He rolled his eyes. “It wouldn’t be a bother.”

“I didn’t want you to think I only call you when I need something.”

“Good job you don’t only call me for that then. Didn’t we have a whole conversation the other day about classic romantic heroes who aren’t romantic but just creepy?”

“Yeah,” she said with a small smile. “However, I still think Cathy and Heathcliffe are a little romantic.”

“You would,” he said teasingly. “Just wait until I tell Paris.”

“Tell me what?” Paris asked, stomping over from where she’d been berating Huntzberger’s friends.

Rory turned pleading eyes upon him and he put a reassuring hand upon her shoulder.

“Nothing. Now what are taking up first?”

Paris narrowed her eyes at him, but looking at Rory’s tense shoulders allowed herself to be distracted. However, once they were manoeuvring the sofa in through the apartment door, she said, “It’s good you came. Not sure we would have managed to move her in before dark otherwise.”

“It gave me an excuse to take some time away from writing.”

She gave him a knowing look. “I’m sure that’s all it was. You guys have been talking more, right?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“She seems happier. Smiling a lot more at her phone. I thought it might be down to you.”

Jess wasn’t sure how to take those words. He’d deliberately stayed away from dissecting his thoughts too deeply when it came to Rory. Since the previous summer, they’d been talking a lot more and had made sure they saw each other more, especially since he’d returned to New York. However, he hadn’t allowed himself to dwell too much on it. There was always a part of his heart that would belong to Rory. She’d been too important in his life for it to be any other way. Yet, there had been no signs that she thought of him as anything other than a friend, but if Paris had noticed something then perhaps he wasn’t the only one finding old feelings bubbling to the surface once more.

“Don’t mess it up this time, Mariano.” Paris said, ignoring his silence.

“Don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Yeah, sure you don’t. Just don’t start something you aren’t prepared to see through. It took Rory a long time to bounce back last time and it would be even harder now.”

“I wouldn’t do that to her again. Besides, I worked through those issues.”

“Good,” Paris said and then added a little softer, “You always were my favourite.”

Jess bit back a smile at being someone’s favourite. “I’m still not telling you why Austen would like Bukowski. If you haven’t worked it out yet then you don’t deserve to know.”

She huffed and slammed the sofa forward harder than necessary, hitting him in the stomach and winding him slightly.


	12. Rachel From F.R.I.E.N.D.S

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess tried to eat them, he really did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I asked for people to leave the first sentence of a fic in my ask box and I'll write the next 5 sentences and @hawthornewhisperer sent: "These are, without a doubt, the worst gingerbread men I've ever eaten."
> 
> I wouldn't usually post something like this to AO3 but I thought it was cute - and being me and with the help far too many commas and incorrect semi-colon use, I wrote 7 very long sentences instead of 5 because what are rules...

“"These are, without a doubt, the worst gingerbread men I've ever eaten. And I grew up with Liz,” Jess said, spitting his mouthful out into some kitchen roll.

He had wanted to like them, wanted to believe Rory when she said she’d taken some cooking classes and knew how to bake now, and when she’d trained her big blue eyes on him, he had taken a big bite so as not to disappoint. He’d swallowed some truly noxious food in his life (those damn leftovers in that basket all those years ago at the bridge sprang instantly to mind), but he couldn’t even keep these down, no matter how much he wanted to make her feel better about her life.

“Did you follow the recipe correctly?” he asked bluntly and ignoring the narrowed eyes she turned in his direction.

“I have a degree from Yale, I think I can follow a stupid cookie recipe,” she sniped, turning back to the recipe book and jabbing forcefully at the now sticky open page before her eyes widened comically and she moaned, “Oh _God_ , it’s official, I’m Rachel, I’m actually Rachel. I put a tablespoon of baking soda in instead of a teaspoon.”

Jess couldn’t help the laugh that escaped his mouth, but at the sight of her bottom lip wobbling, he impulsively leaned forward and kissed her for the first time in a decade; they both paused, shocked at his action, until she speared her hands into his longer hair and tugged him closer, her lips parting on a relieved sigh.


	13. The Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke talks to Rory about Jess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really know what this is tbh. But a scene with Luke being protective over Jess and Rory's ability to hurt him came into my head so I thought I might as well write it. 
> 
> This isn't meant to demonise Rory or mitigate the hurt Jess caused her in S3 (and in extension S4). I just think 2016 Luke would view who had more potential to hurt who differently.

“If you’re not serious about this then leave it alone.”

The gruff almost reluctant voice had her looking up from where she was reading more notes in the margins from Jess. This time they weren’t in Ginsberg or Welsh or Tolstoy. These were notes he had put in _her_ manuscript and the reality of that brought a soft smile to her face.

Her step-dad stood awkwardly next to childhood bed and she frowned a little. Luke rarely sought her out in her room.

“What?” she asked, confused.

Luke made a gesture towards the pages that were dotted liberally with Jess’ spidery handwriting.

“Jess working as my editor? Why would I not be serious about that?”

“Jess in general,” Luke said before he ran a hand through his hair and sat heavily on the bottom of her bed.

“It’s just-” Luke started to say before he broke off with a frustrated sigh. “I never thought I’d be saying this. Well, not to you anyway. I’ve had this conversation with Jess before.”

“What are you getting at?” Rory asked, increasingly baffled by Luke’s words and the pained expression on his face.

Luke met her eyes with a searching look before he said, “It took Jess a really long time to get over you. He loved you for years and I know he’s ninety percent to blame for your break up, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t suffer also. He was good at self-sabotage in those days as I’m sure you remember.”

Rory did. She also remembered the pain that his leaving without a goodbye caused her and the way he’d popped up in her life the year after leaving her feeling emotionally battered and bruised. She wasn’t sure just where Luke was going with this. Those incidents were all put in motion by Jess. She’d been nothing more than a reluctant and unwitting bystander.

“And then you turned up in Philadelphia that time and set him back just as he was beginning to move on.”

Her heart pounded at his words. She had never told anyone about how that night ended – not even Lane. She felt the familiar shame engulf her when she thought back to that night at Truncheon Books eleven years ago. She had a lifetime of regrets when it came to her love life, but despite all the cheating she had done with Dean and Logan, it was the look of hurt in Jess’ eyes when she had rambled on about being in love with Logan and unable to cheat on him the same way that he had cheated on her that haunted her. It was his look of utter hurt that reared its ugly head when she tried to sleep at night.

“Jess told you about that?” she asked in a hesitant and subdued voice.

“It came up once,” Luke said, giving her a knowing look. “There was a very dark time in my life after your mom and Christopher got together. Jess provided a bit of a lifeline.”

Rory could read in between the lines of that. Uncle and nephew had bonded over the ways in which they had been scarred by the Gilmore girls.

“I didn’t go to Philly with the intention of-” Rory started to say before an unimpressed look from Luke cut her off.

Her cheeks flushed painfully red and she wondered for the first time what Luke thought about her behaviour. He had never indicated that he thought she’d behaved badly when it came to cheating. She had, she knew she had and she had resolved to do better. To no longer allow herself to only think of her wants but of others she could hurt through her actions.

“I didn’t mean to hurt Jess that day,” she muttered, embarrassed.

Luke patted her knee kindly. “I know that. He knew that then, too. You didn’t realise that his feelings were still strong for you. But like it or not, you did hurt him, Rory, and it took him a while to bounce back from that. Just think carefully about how you treat him now. I’m not saying he’s in love with you still because he’s not, but I think he could easily fall in love with you again.”

“We’re just working together,” she protested. It was true after all. Yeah, there lingered a fondness for Jess that neither Dean nor Logan inspired in her. Her connection with Jess had always gone beyond pure attraction. She cared for him and he did for her.

“I know you are. It’s just,” Luke paused and grimaced. “Jess is in a good place now. He’s built a good life for himself and I know you are as proud of that as I am. Yet, he still doesn’t really have anyone who just looks out for him – except me. I didn’t really do that when you were kids. I was a lot more worried about him corrupting you and I didn’t hesitate to let him know that.”

Rory’s stomach sank at his words. She didn’t know this. Hadn’t really ever given it any thought. The older she got and the more mistakes she made meant that she was able to see just how difficult things must have been for Jess in Stars Hollow, especially once he started dating the town princess. It didn’t excuse his behaviour during their tumultuous relationship, but she was a lot less judgemental about how he had been as a boyfriend now.

Luke stood again, all awkward body language as he moved towards the door. “I just-” he said, breaking off once more. “I just don’t want to see him hurt. I think he has the capacity to fall in love with you again.”

She stared at the door for a long time after Luke left. Was that true? She had seen no evidence that Jess could love her again, but then again, Jess was good at hiding his feelings when he wanted to. Plus she hadn’t even really thought about it. Their friendship had unexpectedly blossomed a couple of years after that night in Philly. They might not have stayed in regular contact, but when they did see each other again it was always easy to pick up the threads. Then this book had thrown them into greater contact that ever and she’d felt a lightness that she hadn’t for years.

It was only now, with Luke’s words ringing in her ears, that she was able to ponder why that was. The dawning realisation that it was down to having Jess back in her life again and the way he could inspire her like no one else. She wanted to call Luke back and tell him that he was wrong; there was every danger that she could tumble head over heels for his nephew again.

However, the knowledge didn’t scare her. It brought a peace to her soul that she hadn’t even realised she needed.

 


	14. To Lorelai or Not to Lorelai

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rory, Lorelai and Jess discuss baby names

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My take on why Jess is named Jess.

“It has to be Lorelai!” Lorelai said firmly. “It’s a tradition by now. All Gilmore single moms call their daughters Lorelai.”

Rory rolled her eyes. “There has been precisely one previous Gilmore single mom.”

“Exactly.”

“That doesn’t a tradition make.”

Jess slammed the fridge door on the small amount of leftovers from Al’s Pancake World. “If this kid makes you eat as much as this then it would be a crime not to call her Lorelai.”

Rory shot him a glare but Lorelai crowed and threw her arms in the air. “Even _Jess_ agrees with me and if _Jess_ agrees with me then you know it makes sense.”

“I don’t agree with you per se. I don’t even want to be here for this argument but apparently Luke has ditched me.”

“Problems with the bread delivery,” Lorelai said. “You could always go over there.”

“I could,” Jess said. “But the last time I did that I got given an order pad and put to work. This argument is better than having to deal with Kirk’s food insanity.”

“I like Emily,” Rory said. “And more importantly, Grandma would like it, too.”

“But we need to keep the Lorelai name strong.”

“Have either of you thought this baby could be a boy?” Jess inserted.

Lorelai gasped, her hand clutched to her chest in a dramatic show of shock that had him rolling his eyes. “I’m sorry. Have you started speaking another language? I don’t understand what you are saying.”

“It could be a boy, mom.”

“You’re siding with him now? The little coffee bean can’t be anything other than a Gilmore girl. Another Lorelai to carry on the name and the fine tradition of getting knocked up outside of marriage.”

“Mom!” Rory said with a wince.

“Too soon?” Lorelai asked.

“Way too soon.”

“So what are the choices if it’s a boy?” Jess asked, deciding that he might as well embrace the madness of this conversation. When in Stars Hollow…

“Lorelai!” Lorelai said stubbornly.

“Richard!” Rory countered.

“Lorelai. We’ll make the name unisex. Besides if he,” Lorelai said pointing towards Jess, “Can be Jess, then if the coffee bean is a boy it can be Lorelai.”

“You joke,” Jess said. “But that’s precisely how I ended up with my name.”

“What?” Rory said and he realised his big mistake when both Gilmore girls whipped their heads around to look at him with interest.

“Nothing,” he said. “Now, who wants coffee?”

“Oh no you don’t!” Lorelai said. “There’s no getting out of this one. Spill!”

“Please?” Rory said, turning her big blue eyes on him with a pleading expression.

He groaned. He could easily resist Lorelai’s orders, but Rory had always managed to use her cajoling to good effect against him.

“Liz was adamant I was a girl. So adamant that even after I was born she refused to even turn my name into Jesse. It was Jess or nothing.”

Lorelai grinned evilly and his shoulders slumped as he said, “Go on. You might as well get it out now.”

“I’m upset I didn’t get to make you and Rory matching dresses for the wedding now. You would have looked so pretty in that navy blue.”

He glowered at her before turning to put the coffee machine on.

“What would she had done if she wanted to call you Rose or something?” Rory asked thoughtfully.

“You’ve met my little sister, haven’t you? What mom calls a kid Doula?”

“Rose Mariano,” Lorelai pondered. “It has a nice macho ring to it.”

“Ha ha!” Jess said before he turned his attention back on Rory. “Richard Gilmore would also be carrying on a tradition, right?”

“Yeah,” Rory said with a soft smile. “It would.”


	15. You Did What?!?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rory was dreading Jess' reaction to this particular chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I blame this ficlet completely on Rinnie!

The knock on the door startled Rory. She had been sitting anxiously on the sofa waiting for Jess’ email to come with his comments on her latest chapter. He was later than usual in sending it and this brought forth all the nerves she already had about this particular section of the book to the fore.

Sending a last worried look at her phone where her email refused to ping comfortingly at her, she sighed and got up off the sofa. A distraction might prove to be a good thing at this point. She didn’t know why she was so nervous about Jess’ reaction to this chapter. Actually scrap that, she did. He had no business being irritated or upset by it, but he had never liked Dean and she had never told him about her affair with him. God, she hated calling it an affair, but she was no longer twenty and able to lie about what it actually was. She refused to think about her behaviour over that eighteen months with Logan. She didn’t want to focus on how she’d apparently learnt no lessons from Dean. The consequence of which was a swollen belly and a due day in two months’ time.

Pulling open the door and hoping it was either Lane or a delivery person with ice cream, Rory blinked in shock as Jess shoved the pages of her chapter at her and said, “Seriously?!”

“Jess?” she asked stupidly. “What? Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be in Philly?”

“Yes, I should be in Philly, but I had to give you this chapter back personally.”

She stepped aside, allowing him into the house and watched in bemusement as he slumped onto the sofa and flung his head back tiredly.

“Please tell me you’re at least staying the night. You look tired,” she said, suppressing the urge to stroke the stray lock of hair that was stuck stubbornly to his forehead.

“Stop worrying about me and start looking through the chapter. I have lots of questions.”

Biting her lip, Rory settled in the armchair and flicked through crinkled manuscript. She couldn’t say that she was paying a lot of attention to the start of the chapter so she stopped trying to focus on the comments there and instead flicked to the section she knew he had questions about.

However, once she reached it, there were no actual comments. Just lots and lots of question marks.

She looked up at him. “There are no questions here?”

“Oh I know. I managed to formulate the question marks into words on the drive up here.”

Not really wanting to have this conversation, but knowing that it was better to just get it out of the way, Rory settled back in the armchair and said, “Shoot.”

His first question was not what she expected. “You had sex at Miss Patty’s?”

“I wouldn’t lie about that,” she said defensively, mentally willing the blush on her cheeks away.

“Please tell me it wasn’t on the soft mats.”

Her eyes slid past his.

“Ugh. Then please tell me those mats have been changed at least since then.”

She grimaced.

“You at least told Miss Patty to get them deep cleaned, right?”

She shook her head a little shame-faced.

“Dammit, Rory! Doula does ballet there and you’re telling me she uses the same mats that you and Dean got nasty on and apparently were never cleaned?”

“I wasn’t really thinking about a half-sister you didn’t even have at the time!” she snapped.

“No, apparently Dean was so irresistible that you couldn’t keep your hands off him even in places where half the town could walk in on you. Although the way you describe your first time didn’t sound that magical.”

She looked at him then, expecting a sneer on his face, instead he had a shit eating grin. She smiled back and threw a cushion at him. “Shut up!”

“C’mon! The way you described it. It was so mechanical. As your editor, I would tell you to try and liven it up a little but I remember Dean and I’m pretty sure it was as you described.”

“It wasn’t…the best. I didn’t know it at the time, but yeah, it was kind of…lacking.”

Jess smirked. “I’m an adult. I really shouldn’t find this as funny as I do, but I can’t help it.”

She giggled then. Partly from the sheer entertainment Jess was getting from this whole situation, but mostly in relief that her worries about his reaction to this chapter had been overstated.


	16. Desperate Times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lorelai wouldn't usually support giving Jess Rory's address but desperate times call for desperate measures.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what this is but I had a urgent need to write a missing scene set between 6.08 and 6.09 with Jess passing through Stars Hollow.

Lorelai entered the empty diner with Paul Anka, bleary eyed and in much need of coffee. It was past the breakfast rush so she knew she could bring the dog to annoy Luke, and frankly she could do with the distraction. She still wasn’t quite over the events at Rory’s twenty-first birthday party or just how long this rift between them was going on.

“No!” Luke said, turning around from where he was making a fresh pot of coffee. “The dog cannot come in here.”

“C’mon Luke,” she wheeled.

“This is a diner! It’s against health and safety.”

“But he’s your dog-son.”

Luke’s mouth turned down at her words and she mentally grinned. She needed all the distractions she could get these days.

“Out,” he commanded. “Outside now!”

“That’s a little harsh, Uncle Luke, I haven’t even done anything.”

The dry voice coming from the doorway had them both turning around and Lorelai’s face dropped as she saw Jess standing there.

“Jess,” Luke said with a smile. “Did I know you were coming?”

“Thought I’d drop in and surprise you,” Jess said, coming into the diner. He dropped his bag by the counter and Luke gave him a brief hug.

“I’ll take Paul Anka upstairs,” Lorelai said. She felt strange being around Jess now of all times. Seeing him and Luke on such good terms emphasised all the more painfully just how bad things were with Rory.

She walked passed Jess and gave him a fake smile. He nodded back apparently capable of polite gestures now. She pulled the curtain back and sent Paul Anka skittering his way upstairs, while she stayed put. She probably shouldn’t listen in but she was curious. Why was Jess back?

“That’s a nice rock Lorelai is sporting,” Jess said. “Congrats again.”

“Thanks,” Luke said. “So what are you doing here? Are you staying for a while?”

“No, just passing through. I’m in Connecticut on some business.”

“You still based in Philadelphia?”

“Yeah. I’m working at a publishing house now. Nothing fancy, just a small independent press run by a couple of guys.”

“Yeah?” Luke asked. “That’s great, Jess. So they send you up here on the look-out for authors?”

Jess gave an embarrassed laugh and Lorelai couldn’t help but peek out the gap at the side of the curtain and saw him rub a hand across the back of his neck. “Actually, I’m the author. I’m distributing my novel to bookstores up here.”

“Really?!” Luke exclaimed. “That’s great! You wrote a book?”

“Surprise, huh?”

It was to Lorelai. If she’d thought of Jess in the past eighteen months or so, it was to wonder if he’d found himself behind bars or not yet. She scoffed bitterly as she realised it was her daughter with the criminal record and Jess who appeared to be doing well for himself. Who could have predicted that?

“So I was wondering if Rory was around.”

Lorelai narrowed her eyes at that. Jess had done enough damage to her daughter. She didn’t need him coming in now and making things even worse.

“Oh…uh,” Luke stuttered. “She’s not in Stars Hollow at the moment.”

“That’s right. Schools in session. Do you think it’d be alright if you gave me her number or something?”

“Why do you want to speak to Rory?” Luke asked.

It was the question that Lorelai wanted answers to as well.

“I wanted to show her the book,” Jess said with a slight shrug. “I couldn’t have written it without her and wanted to say thanks.”

That gave Lorelai a moment of pause. It seemed Jess was doing well for himself. Fulfilling some kind of unseen potential and actually doing something with his life. As much as it went against the grain for her, a visit from him could be exactly what Rory needed at the moment. A way to shake her up and get her out of the current mind set she was in. Jess had always managed to do that for Rory. She hadn’t like it in the past, mainly because Jess had been a messed up kid with seemingly a bleak future ahead of him. But he appeared to have defied most people’s expectations so maybe he could do some good for a change.

“Er…”Luke floundered again.

Jess smirked a little. “Do you want to go and check that it’s okay with Lorelai?”

Lorelai saw Luke give him an apologetic look before she ducked back and scampered upstairs as quickly as she could. She’d just settled herself down at the kitchen table with one of her magazines she’d left lying around when Luke appeared.

“So Jess is back,” she said.

“Yeah. Only briefly though,” Luke said, taking his cap off uncomfortably and refitting it back on his head. “He wants to see Rory.”

She raised her eyebrows as if surprised. “Why?”

“He’s published a book and wanted to show her. I haven’t told him where she is. I wouldn’t do that without checking with you, but perhaps-” Luke tailed off, clearly unsure how to ask her.

“Perhaps he might knock some sense into my errant daughter?” she suggested lightly.

“Yeah,” he said with a shrug.

“It’s worth a go.”

“Really?” he said, shocked. “You’d be okay with that. With _Jess_ going to see Rory?”

“It’s not as if he could make anything worse right now, is it?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Tell him she’s at my grandparents. Maybe he’ll have an effect. God knows no one else is.”

Luke gave her a small understanding smile before he went back downstairs.

Lorelai sighed and put her head on the table. She had thought things would be sorted by now. It felt like she was missing a limb being on such bad terms with Rory for so long. She hated how uncomfortable things had been between them at the party the other week. It had got to the point that she wasn’t sure how to fix this at all and she wanted nothing more than be on good terms with her daughter once more. The anger had dissipated long ago.

Standing up and moving to the window, she stared out across the square unseeingly. She wasn’t sure how long she remained there, but it wasn’t until she saw Jess’ dark head crossing towards a car parked across the street that she went to go back downstairs once more.


	17. A Tale of Two Dates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rory was enjoying her date with Logan until Paris lets her know her favourite hot book clerk was working that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw a prompt floating around tumblr about being on a perfectly good date until someone tells you that the cute cashier in your local store is working and of course I had to write it for Literati because I know who I am.

Logan was everything her grandma had promised he would be. He was charming, handsome and very suave. Rory was pretty sure that she was going to kiss him when this date was over.

It wasn’t something that she had planned to do before the date. She had only agreed to come reluctantly and because she found it difficult to say no to either of grandparents even when her mom was snickering at her across the table and mouthing “sucker!” at her. So she hadn’t had any great expectations of tonight, had thought that she would probably just tolerate Logan and then escape as soon as she could. But here they were lingering over coffee and she was charmed. And very likely to kiss him.

Until her phone chimed, several times.

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s probably my mom.”

It wasn’t Lorelai, it was Paris. Sighing, she expected it to be the usual rant about Janet and her unhealthy sport training regime or some other petty complaint about their dorm roommates.

_Paris 8:57pm_

_You’ll never guess who’s working tonight!!!_

_Paris 8:57pm_

_The unbelievably cute book clerk you have a thing for._

_Paris 8:58pm_

_Are you still on that date your grandma set up? Get your ass down here. He has on the dark blue shirt that you like so much._

_Paris 8:58pm_

_Okay, he just looked at me and then searched the rest of the store. He’s blatantly looking for you!_

Rory bit her lip and snuck a glance across the table to Logan, who was checking something on his own phone. He was nice, but if she was being honest with herself then she was much more intrigued by the guy who worked at this tiny little bookstore she and Paris had found a couple of months ago. He was insanely hot with the kind of miraculously messed up hair that you knew took hours to perfect in the mirror. When he wasn’t serving, he was either reading a book or scribbling something in a red notebook. Whenever she went up to pay for something he would look at her with this little smile that was intimate despite them only ever having exchanged polite sales words. There had been several charged moments of eye contact that had her blushing when she relived them in the middle of night and her stomach twisting up in anticipation of what might happen.

_Paris 9:00_

_RORY! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!_

Making her mind up to duck out of this date with Logan, she put her phone away and said, “I’m really sorry. I’m going to have to call it a night.”

He looked taken aback. “Oh. I thought we could go out to a bar afterwards.”

“I’d love to, but I promised my roommate that I would meet her ten minutes ago and she’s hounding me already.”

He frowned as if he was put out and she felt a little bad. The night had been going well, but the prospect of seeing the gorgeous book guy meant that Logan paled in comparison.

“Maybe we can do this another night?” he asked.

Giving him a weak smile, Rory said, “Maybe.”

She didn’t want to make any promises. Not if Paris was right and the hot book clerk was looking for her.  

\-----------

Ten minutes later and Rory made it to the bookstore. Barrelling through the door, she caught sight of Paris leafing through a stack of autobiographies but really looking out for her.

“He’s been watching to see if you’d arrive,” Paris whispered once Rory reached her.

“Really?” she asked, peeking at him out the corner of her eye.

“Go talk to him!” Paris said, pushing her unexpectedly towards the counter.

Stumbling a little and feeling flustered, Rory tried to smooth her hair down and glared back at her friend for forcing her into an interaction when she wasn’t prepared. She wracked her brain and desperately tried to think of something to say to the book clerk who was now watching her approach with an appreciative gleam in his intense dark brown eyes.

“Hi,” she said mentally wincing at how breathy she sounded. “I was wondering if you had _The Fountainhead_.”

“Ayn Rand?” he asked sceptically.

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure you want _The Fountainhead_?”

“What?”

“It’s just you’ve shown much better taste in books that I’m confused by this request.”

Confused, she asked, “What’s wrong with _The Fountainhead_?”

“Well, it’s written by Ayn Rand for a start and she was a political nut.”

Rory couldn’t really argue against that. Ayn Rand’s political philosophy left a lot to be desired. “No one else writes a better forty page monologue, though.”

“That’s because no one else _wants_ to write a forty page monologue. Who wants to read that?”

She crossed her arms and looked at him with interest. “So what would you suggest instead?”

“You can’t really go wrong with Hemingway.”

“Ugh,” she groaned. “You’re seriously mocking me about wanting to buy _The Fountainhead_ and yet you’re offering me up Hemingway as a recommendation.”

“ _A Farewell to Arms_ is a classic.”

“Classically boring, you mean.”

He smiled at her. “Ernest only has the loveliest things to say about you.”

Rory couldn’t help but grin back at him. “So we’re at an impasse. You won’t tell me where to find _The Fountainhead_ and I certainly won’t read Hemingway.”

“You might just have to stick around,” he said. “You never know, I might crack.”

“Can I at least know the name of the person I’m going to have to spend the next couple of hours with then?”

“Jess,” he said, his smile getting wider.

“Rory.”

“You on your way out?” he asked, gesturing to her smart dress.

“No. I just had dinner with a friend.”

“Not boyfriend?”

“Why do you want to know?”

Jess shrugged and said, “I was thinking of asking you out for coffee. I finish up in twenty minutes.”

Tilting her head, she observed him for a brief moment. “Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“Okay you can take me for coffee. And a slice of pie.”

“I feel the pie is very important.”

“It is.”

“Over there,” Jess said, pointing to the darkest corner in the shop.

She frowned in confusion. “Over there what?”

“That’s where you’ll find all works by Ayn Rand. I tried to put them back in the stockroom but the owner wouldn’t let me.”

“You really do hate Ayn Rand, don’t you?”

“Oh yeah. Her politics suck.”

Rory acknowledged how right he was but went over the corner anyway and was joined quickly by Paris.

“So?”

“He asked me out.”

“Really?” Paris asked with a delighted grin.

“Yeah. He finishes in twenty minutes. We’re going to get coffee then.”

“Look at you, Gilmore, two dates in one night!”

“But this one I definitely will kiss.”

And she did!


	18. Every Road Leads Me Right Back to You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What were the odds that the car Rory jumped into to escape her wedding would happen to be Jess'?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yesterday was Kris' birthday and she deserves all the Lit fic.

Not stopping to look behind her at the people she was sure would be streaming out the church, Rory jumped in a car that was conveniently waiting at the red light.

“Drive!” she ordered.

“What the fu...Rory?!”

Pushing the yards of filmy veil out of her face, Rory turned towards the driver and let loose a disbelieving laugh. “Oh thank God!” she exclaimed.

Jess stared at her with a confused expression, but then his eyes slid past her face to behind her and he put his foot down, gunned the car and ran the red light.

“Of all the cars in all the towns in all the world the runaway bride jumps into mine,” he said once they were a couple of streets clear.

“Shut up,” Rory replied, struggling to shift into a more comfortable position now that her heart had slowed a little.

Mounds of tulle puffed up around her and spilled over onto the steering wheel and she growled as Jess swatted it back towards her and she got a mouthful.

“Who’s idea was that dress?” he asked derisively.

“Miss Celine’s.”

“Who?”

“My grandmother’s personal fashion designer. She calls me Audrey Hepburn and decided that I needed a wedding dress fit for a princess.”

“I think you could give Diana a run for her money.”

“The train feels as long.”

Silence fell between them and the adrenaline dissipated from her blood stream leaving her drained, tired and horrified at her impetuous actions. She had just ditched Logan _Huntzberger_ at the alter at the society wedding of the year. Half of New England and New York’s high society had come out for this wedding. It was to have featured in _Hello_ magazine next week. And she’d just run out on everything.

“Oh God,” she said and could feel the panic rising in her chest, constricting her breathing. “What have I done?”

“Run from your wedding and gotten into a random car, which is really dangerous by the way. I know Lorelai taught you better than that.”

Rory couldn’t do anything but laugh. At first it was amusement but then it bubbled into hysteria and it wasn’t until she felt Jess’ hand on her shoulder that she was able to stop. As always, his touch was able to ground her in a way she hadn’t felt for a long while.

 _Since you last saw him on that horrible night in Philadelphia,_ she thought.

It was true. The past few years had been a whirlwind of parties and planning with a presidential campaign thrown in. She hadn’t really had a moment to breath and she wondered if that was how she’d ended up in a wedding dress about to walk down the aisle on her father’s arm to become Mrs Logan Huntzberger. She’d been so busy there had been no time for her stop, breathe and ask herself if she really wanted the life that was being mapped out for her.

It was then that she realised that they had stopped on a country road somewhere outside Hartford and the strangeness of it being Jess’ car she’d somehow stumbled into hit her.

“What are you doing in Connecticut?” she finally managed to ask.

“On my way to visit Doula and Luke.”

“I can’t go to Stars Hollow,” she said, her words coming out in a panicked rush. There was no way that she could face anyone right now – not even her mom, who she knew would understand her decision and not judge her for it. Her mom who knew all about making mistakes in marrying the ‘right’ men from the ‘right’ world and how wrong it could go. “It’s the first place they’ll look.”

“Relax,” Jess said calmly. “I’m not stupid. Where _do_ you want to go?”

Her mind went blank. Usually her mom would be the first person she would turn to followed by Lane and then Paris. But all three of them were at the wedding and there was no one else she was close enough to turn to at this moment. Her chest contracted painfully at the horrifying understanding that her world was so narrow she had no one she could lean on in this moment in time who wasn’t at the wedding. If she hadn’t somehow have landed up in Jess’ car then she would have been so lost.

“I…I don’t know,” she muttered. It was a crushing realisation. She had nowhere to go. Looking at Jess, she could see the sympathy in his eyes as he figured out her predicament.

“How about a weekend trip to Philly then? I’ll even buy you a cheesesteak.”

Rory bit her lip. It was a tempting offer and fate had somehow thrown her and Jess together in the most improbable of circumstances. But the last time they’d been in Philly together it had all gone wrong and she had thought she’d lost all hope of friendship ever with Jess. Indeed, hadn’t even set eyes on him.

Until today.

He continued to watch her with the quiet understanding he always showed and his steadfast gaze made her mind up for her. He wasn’t just offering to be polite – that wasn’t Jess anyway – he was offering because he meant it. He would always be there for her and she blinked back the tears as her heart swelled with warmth from that knowledge.

“Yeah, okay.”

“You sure?”

“I have nothing better to do. My plans for the Maldives fell through,” she said flippantly, knowing that if she went for sincerity she would end up sobbing all over him and that wasn’t an option.

Her sally got a grin from Jess, who restarted the car and headed south away from Hartford.

For a moment, Rory looked back. The life she’d spent the past three and a half years envisaging, ever since she’d said yes to Logan’s proposal at her graduation party, was gone. But she had no regrets. As her wedding had drawn nearer, the desire to marry Logan had waned. She had loved him once, loved him when she said yes, but somewhere since then, that love had died. Probably when the realisation that she really didn’t want to live the kind of life Logan led and that the things that had attracted her to him back at Yale were no longer so attractive as they hit their mid-twenties.

As she turned back to face the front, her dress twisted up around and she grunted her annoyance.

“Tell me you have some clothes I can borrow. I’m going to strangle myself in this dress if I don’t get out of it soon.

“Yeah, in the back,” Jess replied with an amused smirk at the yards of fabric that were twisting around her almost as if in punishment. “Want me to pull over at the next rest stop.”

“Please!”

A couple of miles later, they hit a rest stop. Jess handed her his green duffle bag once Rory had finally struggled out of the car and she marched off towards the bathroom so ready to get the hell out of the tulle prison. She ignored the curious looks she got and closed the cubicle door in the ladies.

Fifteen minutes later, she was finally free. It was a testament to how much attention a runaway bride got that her appearance in Jess’ clothes didn’t pull nearly as many looks.

“You read my mind,” she said, once she returned back to the car and saw that Jess had picked them both up coffees and a packet of strawberry pop tarts, which she tore into.

“Hungry?” he asked in amusement.

“Do you know how hard it is to eat in a wedding dress? I haven’t had anything since early this morning.”

“No wonder you ran away.”

Rory grinned. She’d forgotten just how easy it was to be in Jess’ company. How he never judged her, just let her make her decisions and rolled with them.

“Yep so our next stop better be cheesesteak.”

He rolled his eyes but started the car back up.

As they pulled back out onto the freeway, Rory felt like a new chapter in her life was beginning and excitement fizzed through her veins. She hadn’t anticipated something so much in years.

 


	19. Hospital Realisations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess is stupidly stubborn about going to hospital. Good job Rory's there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt: I was wondering if you could write some short stories of Rory taking care of Jess? Like him getting appendicitis in one of them and him getting a concussion in the other one?
> 
> I went for an appendicitis.

“Oh thank God,” Chris said as he opened the door.

Rory blinked in surprise and then asked, startled, “Why?!”

“Please get Jess to go to the hospital.”

Her heart stopped for a moment and she stared at Chris uncomprehendingly as her brain shut down at the thought of Jess needing to go to the hospital. Then she was finally able to marshal her thoughts into something coherent and she asked sharply, “Why does Jess need to go the hospital?”

“He’s been complaining of a pain in his side since yesterday and I know it’s getting worse just from his sweaty face but he’s refusing to go to ER and check it out.”

“Let me go and talk to the idiot,” she said barging her way past Chris and up into the main office.

Rory took one look at Jess and the way he was hunched over his desk, attempting to read a manuscript but wincing, and snapped her jaw shut.

“That’s it,” she said, barrelling up to his desk with her eyes narrowed. “We’re going to the hospital right now.”

Jess looked up and his eyes widened in horror at her presence. “You’re not supposed to be here, yet,” he said with a quick glance up at the clock on the wall.

“Finished my assignment early and decided to come straight here. Good job, too.”

It was a habit of hers to show up early to meet Jess. She liked hanging out at Truncheon, reading through the tottering pile of manuscripts that always sat on his desk. It felt like she was potentially getting a sneak peek at the next Pulitzer Prize novel. When she told Jess this, he’d snorted and reminded her that Truncheon was a tiny independent publishers that most people only came to once they’d been rejected by the bigger, more established publishing houses. She liked to counter that by listing all the great authors who’d been rejected by several publishers at first.

It was weird how their friendship had grown once more. It had started when she’d gotten a job at the _Inquirer,_ which had saved her from the crushing stagnation of freelance; a career she really wasn’t cut out to succeed in. However, her Yale contacts had come through and someone who’d been on the _Yale Daily News_ with her had called her about an opening in Features at the Inquirer and she’d jumped at the chance for interviewing for it. Living in Philadelphia had meant, of course, that she’d contacted Jess. She’d been nervous about doing so. They’d only seen each other once or twice in passing since that fateful night at his open house six years ago. But Jess was never one to hold a grudge and they’d started to hang out together once more. If anyone thought it was strange how easily she slipped into Jess’ life in Philly then they didn’t mention it to her and she refused to dwell on how she wanted to spend all her spare time with him and how simple it was slotting into his world.

“Come on,” she said, grabbing his jacket from the pegs near the door.

“I’m not going to the hospital,” he said, stubbornly and she watched as the tick in his jaw jumped.

It softened her desire to scream at him for being stupid. She remembered now how he shared a hatred of hospitals with his uncle. She’d never found out why, but it didn’t take a leap of logic to realise it probably had something to do with his childhood.

“Jess,” she said, a little softer. “You’re wincing and clutching your side. That’s not normal. Don’t you think you should get it checked out?”

“I just need some better painkillers.”

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “You’re not stupid. This could be an appendicitis or something.”

“It’s just a stitch. I was lifting boxes earlier.”

“Yeah,” she said with heavy sarcasm. “That’s totally what it is. Don’t make me call Paris. I will do. She’ll happily list all the things it could be over the phone and then call an ambulance to come and get you.”

He shot her a glare and snapped, “Fine! If you’re going to play dirty.”

“I am.”

Chris and Matt gave her a thumbs up behind his back and she subtly winked in their direction. If anyone could get around Jess then it was her.

\---------------

“Don’t you dare call Luke,” Jess said as they waited for him to be prepped for surgery. He had an appendicitis like she had feared. The doctors were rushing him into surgery because it was inflamed and at danger of bursting. The thought of that had her turning pale.

He was already irritated that Rory was still there. He had wanted her to drop him at the doors of the ER and leave. He was very grumpy about her being there when he was wearing a hospital gown. He should have been a sight for her to laugh at, but somehow Jess managed to even make unflattering hospital clothes work. It was unfair. Truly it was.

“I won’t,” she promised.

“Thank you,” he murmured as the medical team came through the door. “I wouldn’t have gone to hospital without you there to play dirty.”

She patted his hand, resisting the urge to lace her fingers through his. “That’s what I’m here for.”

Watching until they wheeled him out of sight, Rory sighed and went to find the nearest coffee shop, pulling her phone out of her bag on the way. She might have said that she wouldn’t call Luke but Jess hadn’t mentioned anything about her mom.

_“Hey Kid, what’s up? Have you changed your mind about coming home for the harvest festival?”_

“Jess is in hospital.”

There was a pause at the end of the line at her abrupt sentence.

_“What? Is he okay? Wait, why are you calling me about this?”_

“He made me promise not to call Luke.”

_“He must have been out of it for him to forget about me. What’s up with him?”_

“He has an appendicitis. He’s just gone into surgery.”

_“Need me to tell Luke?”_

“Yeah. But also tell Luke not to worry about coming down. I’ve got everything under control here.”

_“You sure? We could be there in under four hours.”_

Rory could hear the concern in her mom’s voice and knew what it meant. Closing her eyes, she allowed the realisation of what she had been pushing into the deepest and darkest corner of her mind wash over her. She loved Jess.

She wondered if she always had. If he had always had a stubborn hold onto a small part of her heart ever since he’d sauntered into her life with his notes in the margins and I don’t give a fuck attitude. She thought she had banished him from her heart when he came to her dorm room and begged her to run away with him with a frenzied urgency that had been part scary and part alluring. But the way her feelings for him had crept back during the past eight months makes her think that maybe she didn’t. That Jess had always lurked there waiting for the right moment.

“I’m okay.”

_“Alright then, Kid. Try not to stress too much. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”_

The worry of the day caught up with and she sat with shaky legs on a bench and leaned against the wall with her head tilted up to the ceiling. She had been so concerned about getting Jess the help he needed that she hadn’t thought about how close he came to dying. His appendix could have burst just a couple of hours later and her breath shuddered in her chest at the thought.

“Yeah,” she said and then took a deep breath. “I love him, Mom.”          

There’s another pause.

_“Oh honey, I know you do.”_

“You do?”

_“He’s been the main focal point of all your stories since you moved down there. It’s not a phone call from you if I don’t get a Jess update.”_

Rory frowned. Had that really been the case? She thought she was good at not mentioning him too much to her mom, all too aware of the history between them.

“You aren’t screaming or throwing anything.”

_“I’ve been expecting this for a while.”_

“Oh!”

\-------------

All Rory could think once Jess was wheeled out of recovery was how pale he looked. His olive skin had been washed out and she didn’t like it. It felt too much like all the life had been sucked from him, leaving him drained.

However, she could see his chest rising slowly but surely with each breath he took and she collapsed into the chair next to his bed and reached out to clutch his hand. She leaned forward and pressed a fervent kiss onto it in relief that he was okay.

Pulling the chair in closer to the bed, Rory arranged herself in it as comfortably as she could while still holding his hand. It was going to be a long night and she was sure that Jess didn’t expect her to stay with him, but there was no way she was going home.

\------------

A hand softly brushing the hair back off her forehead had her lifting her head off the bed, rubbing the crick in her neck, and blinking her eyes blearily in the soft light of early morning.

“Hi,” Rory said, a little hoarsely when she saw that it was Jess. He looked better than he had a couple of hours earlier. His colour had returned.

“You stayed? You didn’t have to stay.”

“I know,” she replied simply. “I didn’t want to leave you alone. You hate hospitals, remember?”

“Yeah. No wonder with such monstrosities as those,” he said, pointing to the large bouquet of pink and white flowers. “Lorelai?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll take them as reward for her managing to keep Luke a couple of states away.”

Rory smiled. “How are you feeling?”

“Better. There’s no more stabbing pain in my side anymore.”

“Always a benefit.”

“Thanks for getting me here. I doubt Chris or Matt would have managed.”

The thought of what might have happened had she not been in Philadelphia had her pressing her hand to her mouth to try and stifle the sob.

“Hey,” Jess said softly, catching her hand with his and squeezing it. “Don’t cry. Everything’s okay.”

“I was so scared and the thought of losing you-” she trailed off and brushed a stray tear off her cheek.

“But you didn’t,” he said, tipping her face up so she was looking at him. There was a look in his eyes that she hadn’t seen for years and its presence caused tingles to down her spine.

“No, I didn’t,” she said softly before leaning forward and capturing his lips with hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The [Literati Fic Fest ](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/literati_fest/works) is currently posting. There are some amazing fics to read so go check them out. I wrote a [Persuasion AU](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10770594/chapters/23887083) if you fancy reading that.


	20. Through the Eyes of a Sister

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rory and Gigi talk ex-boyfriends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm a sucker for sibling relationships and talking to @missgoalie75, I realised that whilst I have written Jess and Doula interacting a couple of times now, I've never had anything for Rory and Gigi. Then this ficlet grew in my head and it seemed liked a good opportunity to explore how Rory and Gigi might interact. 
> 
> I've fudged Gigi's age. Pretty sure she's meant to be a year or two younger but meh ASP never cared too much about age in canon so...
> 
> Also there's a really brief mention of abortion so if that's not your thing don't read.

“Oh, who’s that?” Gigi asked, stopping in the street and showing some interest in someone at long last.

It had been a tough couple of days with Gigi over for the summer from France. Rory had always struggled with her sister – the big age gap between them not helping – but also because Gigi was as different from Rory as could be. In fact, at seventeen, Gigi was much more like Madeline or Louise than Rory at that age. It was hard for them to find common ground to interact on. It also didn’t help that, often or not, Rory was left to entertain her sister. Their dad spending long hours at the office heading the family company. Gigi wasn’t one to be amused by hours in a bookstore and then a burger, which she’d vocally made clear today.

Rory sighed and look over to where Gigi was pointing. She stopped, stared and then frowned a little. “Jess?” she said questioningly.

“As that’s who it is or that’s who you think it is?”

“No, it’s Jess, but what’s he doing here?”

“He doesn’t live in Stars Hollow?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think this town could have someone as sexy as that living here.”

Flinching at her much younger teenage sister calling Jess sexy, Rory grimaced and snapped, “That’s so inappropriate. He’s much older than you and was around when you were born.”

Gigi rolled her eyes. “Calm down, Grandma. I was just pointing out that he’s hot. I wasn’t about to go and jump him.”

Smothering her annoyance at her little sister’s smartass comment, she muttered instead, “I wonder what he’s doing here. He didn’t say anything about him coming up for the weekend.”

“Hang on,” Gigi said with narrowed eyes. “Is that _Jess_ Jess?”

“What do you mean _Jess_ Jess?”

“As in the guy helping edit your book and your ex-boyfriend. He is your ex-boyfriend, right? I’m pretty sure Dad and your mom had a conversation about it on the phone.”

“Yes, he is my ex-boyfriend and what do you mean Mom and Dad had a conversation about it?!

“Something about Dad being worried about him back in your life because he’s a no good hoodlum who broke your heart and how could she let him within ten feet of you _et cetera et cetera ad nauseam_.”

Rory felt the age old irritation of how everyone always jumped to the worst conclusions about Jess rise up. Yeah, sure, he hadn’t been the best teenager in the world, but he’d had a pretty fucked up childhood. And yes, he had broken her heart, but it wasn’t as if she had never gotten over that. She wasn’t exactly pining away for him now, desperate for any attention he threw her. Plus, it was convenient how no one ever mentioned how he’d pulled himself together. So he’d been a teenage tearaway, but he was nothing if not an upright member of society now. She couldn’t help but smile a little at the thought of how Jess would wince at her using the term upright member of society, but truly he was, in his own way.

“Pretty sure I’m an adult in her thirties now who can decide who gets to be near me or not,” she grumbled, voicing her irritation with the one aspect of her dad’s conduct that she wouldn’t have to explain away.

Gigi turned to look at her with some dawning respect in her eyes. “And you get to say that your heart was broken by _that_ guy.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that he’s the kind of man you expect to break your heart. C’mon, Sis, he’s so much cooler than Logan. So kudos on getting your heart broken by him as well as Logan.”

“Hey,” Rory objected. “I _did not_ get my heart broken by Logan. If anyone got their heart broken in that scenario then it was him. I turned _his_ proposal down.”

“So then why is everyone treading on eggshells around you regarding his wedding to Odette Du Beaucourt? And there was such a strange vibe between the pair of you at the Huntzberger summer fete.”

Rory closed her eyes, unsure or unable to truly explain just how convoluted her relationship with Logan was – or had been. They had managed to actually make their separation stick after their goodbye last October. There had been no sneaky sex trips to London or meet ups in Prague. Instead, she felt as if she had finally closed the chapter on Logan once and for all, which had helped her make up her mind to go through with an abortion when she found out she was pregnant a month later.

“There’s just some history between us that’s all. I’m happy he and Odette are getting married next month. I wish them all the best.”

Gigi looked at her sceptically.

“No, really I am,” she emphasised and it was the truth. She didn’t want Logan to break up with Odette or propose to her again. She had no pangs of jealousy that he was marrying another woman.

“Good,” her sister said with a smile. “Dad keeps harping on about how great Logan is and how much he wished you had married him, but Logan’s so blah.”

“Oh he’s blah, is he? And you know so much about boys.”

“I’ve had boyfriends,” Gigi said strenuously. “And the boys in Paris are so much more interesting than some East Coast Republican Blue Blood no matter what Dad says.”

“Pretty sure Logan didn’t vote for Trump.”

Gigi snorted. “Yeah, sure, if you want to believe that. I bet his parents did though. And you can’t tell me that he’s not going to end up running as a Republican senator at some point. He practically has Future Politician written on his forehead. So good job on escaping that fate.”

Rory shuddered at the thought and also eyed her sister with some admiration. She’d never thought too much about Gigi, which made her feel guilty whenever she thought about it. However, aside from a short period when her mom and dad were married, she’d never really seen Gigi that much. She certainly hadn’t pegged her sister as being perceptive but it appeared she was.

“So what’s your thoughts on Jess then?”

Gigi grinned and her dimples came out. “He has what the French call a certain _je ne sais quoi_.”

Rolling her eyes, Rory snorted and said, “You’re full of it.”

“Cheesy but true,” her sister replied. “And I think you should have married _that_ ex-boyfriend.”

“We dated for six months when we were eighteen. Marriage was never even mentioned.”

“Yeah, but he’s still around. Who says marriage won’t come up? Especially if he keeps looking at you that way.”

Rory looked up and true enough Jess was watching her through the glass of the diner with a small smile on his face. As they caught eyes, he beckoned for her to come in. Gigi giggled but Rory refused to indulge her sister’s mischievous side and instead linked her arm through Gigi’s and marched her across the street.”

“Don’t say a word,” she warned as they approached the door.

“I have to say something otherwise it’ll be weird. But don’t worry, I’m much better around guys than you so I won’t embarrass you.”

 


	21. From One Uncommunicative Teen to Another

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lorelai and Lane try to guess Jess' favourite Skam character.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am nothing if not predictable and when I like I new show I tend to write about other faves liking that show ([see my Jon and Sansa argue about Team Jess vs Team Logan ficlet for more evidence](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1561523/chapters/22584545)) 
> 
> So here's Literati + Lorelai and Lane talking about Skam!

“So who’s your favourite character?” Lane asked Jess.

“No, no, wait! It’ll be more fun if we guess,” Lorelai interjected.

“Shouldn’t that be  _ nei _ ?” Jess said.

“Rory!” Lorelai said. “Your boyfriend is being insufferable  _ still _ . I thought you said he’d grown out of it.”

Jess rolled his eyes. “Because it’s not like you haven’t seen me yourself over the years.”

“Fleetingly,” Lorelai said.

“Shouldn’t that make me more palatable?”

“It should yes, but so far I’m not seeing it. However, you do have the decency to appreciate Skam unlike that uncle of yours.”

“You tried to get Luke to watch a show about angst ridden teens in Norway?” Jess asked with a smirk.

“Of course.”

“I would have paid to see how that went down.”

Lorelai cracked a grin. “It had it’s moments. I should have filmed it. You know like people do for big moments in Game of Thrones. Those reactions videos. I could have put it on YouTube and he’d have gone viral.”

Jess choked on a mouthful of coffee at the thought. “Uncle Luke as an internet sensation. Now  _ that  _ I would love to see.”

“Okay, but back to favourite character. I want to see if Jess has the same fave as me,” Lane said impatiently.

“Nope. Definitely not,” Rory said, leaning against Jess. She still could not get over that she got to do that once more. Such a simple action could still send tingles up spine as if she was still eighteen and overwhelmed by how much Jess made her feel. The magic between them remained but was amplified by the years of growing up they had done. Now, she was willing to lean into the chemistry between them without it frightening her. She lapped up all the passion that Jess had bubbling under the surface and revelled in how it was all for her.

“Who’s your favourite?” Jess asked Lane, after bringing his arm up and around Rory’s neck.

“Eva.”

“Oh yeah. No, she’s not my favourite.”

Lane pouted. “She’s no-one’s favourite but mine.”

“Jess is clearly an Isak man,” Lorelai said. “He has to exhibit good taste somewhere.”

“Nope,” he said popping the ‘p’ emphatically.

“It’s not Vilde is it?” Lane asked horrified.

Jess shot her an unimpressed look across the table. 

“Don’t tell me Rory talked you into loving Noora the most,” Lorelai said a little disdainfully. “The clear answer to the best Skam character is always going to be Isak with Even a close second.”

“I like Noora,” Jess said. “She and Rory have some similar characteristics-,”

“Like a weakness for men with Porsches,” Lorelai interrupted.

Rory stiffened and shot her mom a glare. The relationship with Jess was still so new and she really didn’t need the ghost of yet another ex-boyfriend hanging over her and Jess this time. Besides, she and Logan were long done. Had been even before she’d gone through with the abortion the week after her mom’s wedding. Logan had been relieved that she didn’t actually want to keep the baby, although she knew he would have tried to be a presence in the baby’s life. It would have been as messy as their affair had been and she didn’t regret the abortion.

However, she relaxed when Jess pulled her closer to him and laughed. “Unfortunate but true.”

“Hey, I object to that,” she said.

“Too late. You already dated America’s answer to William,” Lane said. 

“ _ Et Tu, Brute _ ?” she asked.

“Sorry,” Lane said. “I couldn’t resist.”

“Anyway, it’s clear who Jess’ favourite character is. I’m shocked you both need to ask.”

“Who?” Lane said eagerly.

“Sana! Is there anyone else Jess would like more?”

“Maybe Elias,” Jess added. 

“Ugh of course it would be Sana,” Lorelai remarked.

“What’s the ugh for?” Jess said sharply.

“Nothing. I love Sana, too, but yeah it all makes sense now. Uncommunicative teen who is snarky and refuses to open up.”

“She’d open up if her friends showed more interest instead of just assuming that she has no feelings because she’s a little closed off.”

“Yeah, how did I not get this first time?” Lorelai said. “It all makes so much sense.”

Rory smothered a smile. Her mom did have a point. If Jess could relate to anyone in Skam then it definitely would be Sana.

“Although if they make Sana cry again, I’m out,” Jess said.

“Yeah, yeah, you say that but you are far too invested in her happiness,” Rory said kissing his cheek. 

Jess dropped an answering kiss on the top of her head and said, “She needs a happy ending. She deserves it.”

“She also deserves Yousef,” Lane interjected.

“But does he deserve her?” Lorelai asked. “After that Noora stunt?”

“They totally aren’t dating,” Rory said. 

“Are you still talking about that foreign teen show,” Luke asked as he ambled over with the coffee pot to refill their mugs.

“Of course. We just watched the new clip and are now impatient for more,” Lorelai said

“I still can’t believe you got roped into this, too, Jess.” 

“I’m a sucker teens making bad choices, Uncle Luke. Gives me nostalgia.”

Lorelai cackled into her coffee. For all she complained about Jess, there was an affection behind the words now. They would both probably never admit it, but they appreciated each other a lot more these days. Lorelai definitely found Jess more entertaining, which allowed Rory to bask in how different her relationship with Jess was this time round. 


	22. Cardigans and Kisses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess gets roped into help with the Stars Hollow haunted house

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the delighteful @lunaplath who left me this prompt: Jess/Rory, haunted house

“Yeah, nope. That’s not happening,” Jess said vehemently.

“It could be fun.”

Jess looked at his uncle as if he’d lost his goddamn mind. “Fun? Setting up some weird haunted house will be fun?”

“I said could.”

“So there’s some hope for you left.”

Luke sighed, removed his cap, fiddled with it before putting it back on again. “Lorelai really wants to do this,” he finally said.

Jess suppressed the smile until it was nothing more than a twitch of his lips at that. Luke had always been soft for Lorelai and it was no secret. But actually dating and being married to her for over six years now meant that Luke was more often than not found in the midst of all the crazy stunts this stupid hick town pulled.

But time had also made Jess soft because where before he’d outright refuse and not care about how much Luke frowned and looked put upon, now he could feel the will to resist seeping out of him. Mentally cursing this weakness, he pointed a finger at Luke and said, “You owe me. I’m talking about big time owing me. You’re going to be manning the grill at whatever dumb events Matt wants to put on for the press over the summer.”

Clapping him on the back, Luke said, “I knew I could rely on you.”

“Don’t!” Jess said warningly. “I’m not reliable and you definitely cannot not rely on me.”

“Sure,” Luke said, with a grin.

\-------------

“Wow, I can’t believe Luke actually managed to get you to come,” Rory said with wide eyes when Jess turned up outside the Twickham House. “What are you dressed as?”

“Luke said I had to be terrifying so I came as Taylor.”

Rory put her head back and laughed in delight and Jess couldn’t help but smile. Getting Rory to laugh these days was something of an achievement. She was struggling to nail down a career in journalism and he knew how much that had to sting such a perfectionist. She had never been one to roll with the punches – she was all about lists and planning. Therefore, the lack of success in landing a job of any calibre was beginning to show and he knew that Luke and Lorelai were worried. He supposed this was why Lorelai was going all out on Halloween in Stars Hollow this year. Like her mom, Rory had always been a sucker for a kooky town event and from just the walk across the square to the Twickham House had showed him that Lorelai was pulling out all the stops.

“Just wait until he sees you. He’s going to have an aneurism.”

“Ooh and actually give Stars Hollow a bone fide haunted house?”

“Stop,” Rory said and whacked him on the arm with her clipboard. But her smile gave her away. She’d always found him funny even when no one else had.

“So where do you want me, Boss?” he asked and then stopped and looked at her curiously. Was he imagining the flare of lust in her eyes at his words? He wasn’t stupid, the chemistry between them had never dissipated even if it had been nearly nine years since they had dated.

“Erm…right…yeah…” she said incoherently, stumbling over her words a little as her cheeks turned pink.

He hadn’t been imagining it then and he allowed the possibility of making a move to flash through his mind. He usually repressed any such thoughts ruthlessly. She had given him a chance once before and he’d blown it so he’d never even realistically spent too much time thinking about a second go.

“I think I should stick you somewhere away from Taylor,” Rory said, after rustling through her papers uselessly for a long moment. “So in the attics please to set up the creepy séance parlour.”

“Great,” he said and let his gaze heat up and linger on her for a split second before going up the steps and disappearing into the house.

He didn’t miss how she bit her lip and allowed her eyes wander over him.

\---------

“Oh wow, it looks great, Jess,” Rory said a few hours later.

He hadn’t seen her since their exchange outside but the solitude of working on his own all afternoon had meant that he’d pretty much thought of her non-stop.

“Thanks. My misguided teenage years have obviously paid off.”

“They have!” she said, walking around and peering at his impressive handiwork. “I came to warn you that Taylor’s doing a final inspection in case you want to hide somewhere.”

“What? And miss his reaction to my costume,” he said, gesturing down to his cardigan with a mocking hand.

Rory sent him a fond look. “I should have known you wouldn’t want to take me up on the offer.”

“Especially as you didn’t mean for me to duck out for the rest of the night,” he said with a pout. “Or even to keep me company.”

“I could keep you company,” she said, her glance turning a little lustful and she walked towards him. “I’m not actually assigned to any particular role. I’m meant to be putting out fires.”

“And my reputation does precede me.”

She had come to halt next to him and her hand reached out to his. “Don’t say that.”

“What?”

“Talk as if you are still that messed up teenager. You think people can’t see how far you’ve come?”

His words dried up and he could do nothing more than just stare at her. He was never any good at talking about himself or his emotions. It was always a struggle to get the words out. The walls he’d raised as a coping mechanism as a kid might have come down until they were nothing more than a fence, but it was still hard for him to force the words out for such conversations. He was more like his uncle than he usually admitted.

“I’m proud of you Jess. Luke is proud. Even my mom is a little proud of you.”

“You mean she no longer throws salt over her shoulder after saying my name?”

The hand that wasn’t holding his came out to playfully pat him on the chest at that and she scrunched up her nose adorably and said, “Stop!”

“Rory,” he murmured in a husky cadence, his hand cupping her jaw.

He hesitated for a small moment to give her time to pull back or tell him no. But it didn’t come and he bent his head to close the infinitesimal gap between them and brush his lips softly against hers.

As it had in the past, the kiss quickly turned passionate and she had him pushed up against the wall with her hand pushed inside the cardigan when the door swung open and a scandalised “Oh my goodness!” sounded out followed by an outraged, “Is that my cardigan?!”

Breaking apart, they both started laughing as they faced a shocked Taylor Doose. This was probably the scariest thing he’d seen in the entire haunted house.

**Author's Note:**

> If you so wish, you can find me on [tumblr](http://rumaan.tumblr.com/)


End file.
